Corrupting Influence
by author-self-insert
Summary: Are the wicked just as vulnerable to corruption as the innocent? Tanya's giving Bella an offer she can't refuse. The catch? Bella will have to face the devil, AKA, Edward Cullen. HEA. AH. Bella/Edward. Cannon couples.
1. Chapter 1

**Warning:** _ **Corrupting Influence**_ **contains references to suicidal thoughts, child abuse, school violence, and attempted rape. The chapters with these references will be preceded by warnings.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyer. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, including some fanfictions that will be mentioned when pertinent, this plot belongs to me.**

 **Theme song for this fic: Rasputina's** _ **The Hunter's Kiss.**_

" _Vices are manifold, take countless different forms and are incapable of classification."_ – Seneca the Younger, Letter CXXII translated by Robin Campbell

Chapter 1

 _The virgin and the whore plot corruption._

At least, Bella was sure that was what they saw, all the other occupants of this little den of debauchery.

The virgin's innocence— _Bella's_ innocence—writ large across an anxious visage.

The whore's depravity— _Tanya's_ depravity—clear from the immobility of her marble countenance.

The voyeurs watched as Tanya wrapped her long red-tipped fingers around Bella's arm, pulling her closer to whisper into her ear.

When Tanya confessed that she too knew Edward Cullen, Bella sputtered, nearly spilling her wine. The mere mention of the man's name was still enough to send a jolt through Bella's frame.

Looking at Tanya, though, it made absolute sense. _'Hair and breast steeped in perfume, she would wake desire in an old man.'_

Bella didn't ask for details. She didn't want to know about the nature of Tanya's relationship with Edward.

Unfortunately, Bella was too inebriated by that point to hold her own tongue. _'One medicine, my friend, alone is fit—wine—and get drunk on it.'_ She told Tanya everything.

Then Tanya made a proposal.

Bella was horrified. How could Tanya possibly suggest such a thing after what she'd just heard?

Because it was just too much.

Nevertheless, Tanya calmly and carefully refuted every one of Bella's arguments.

At a loss, Bella took one last stab at convincing Tanya that it was a waste of time. "I don't think he'll go along with it."

Tanya cackled. Except that it sounded like bells ringing, uncannily melodic, the laughter of a Disney witch masquerading as a queen. Bella's very own evil fairy godmother come to life.

Someone must have slipped Bella a drug, because none of this could be real.

"Isssabelllla," Tanya purred, her lilting accent stretching out the consonants, the unique inflection of her words having become more pronounced as she became more and more intoxicated. "If he's not interested, it 'ell not matter, 'ell it?"

Tanya was right. And Bella was suddenly angry.

Tanya was smoking a cigarette in a holder. A fucking cigarette holder, like she was some Hollywood starlet from the '30s, the smoke curling around Tanya's arm. She and Bella were sitting at a back table, lit only by a candle and a couple of sconces on the walls. Curtains billowed around the other tables, assuring the patrons' privacy as they enjoyed varying degrees of debauched revelry. Bella could see limbs snaking in and out of paisley silk, the air rancid with patchouli. It was Delacroix's _Death of Sardanapalus_ , minus the naked dancing girls.

 _And they think this is corruption?_ Bella thought scornfully. But who was she to judge?

She had tried so hard to appear blasé! A fool in her best dress finding out that her knickers were out of fashion when a stiff wind exposed her nether-regions to the world.

Suddenly sobering, Bella considered just what it was that Tanya was asking of her.

Bella could feel it, her own destruction leering at her, black and cold.

Because this would end her. She was sure of it.

 _Fuck the world_ , Bella decided, a sick, treacherous feeling spreading through her limbs.

With a quick nod, she accepted Tanya's proposal.

 **AN:**

 _'Hair and breast steeped in perfume, she would wake desire in an old man.' —_ Archilochus

 _'One medicine, my friend, alone is fit—wine—and get drunk on it.' —_ Archilochus

 **HEA. Edward/Bella. Canon couples in the end, but some very minor slash before we get there. Unbetaed.**

 **Rated M for language and subject matter.**

 **I actually wrote** _ **Corrupting Influence**_ **first, decided that I hated it, and used it to write** _ **Gothic**_ **. But now that I'm rewriting/editing** _ **Corrupting Influence**_ **and posting it, I've decided not to take out the parts that I stole for** _ **Gothic**_ **since they were originally meant to be here. So there are some thematic and linguistic crossovers, but not many.**

 **Rec:** **NewTwilightFan's** **Monolith - *Red Eyed Edward Contest Entry: 1st Place Judges' Vote* Bella has returned to Forks to live with her father every other year since her parents' divorce. Her emotional isolation threatens to overwhelm her, then she senses a mysterious force drawing her deep into the shadows of an abandoned graveyard. The force emanates from a standing stone. . . the gateway to her destiny. AU Rated: Fiction T - English - Suspense/Horror - Bella, Edward - Chapters: 12 - Words: 34,435 - Reviews: 787 - Favs: 375 - Follows: 427 - Updated: Jul 10 - Published: Nov 16, 2015 - Status: Complete - id: 11618477**


	2. Chapter 2

**Warning: This chapter contains contemplation of suicide. If you live in the USA and need help, text "Go" to 741741 or call 1-800-273-8255. Other support services available at www dot crisistextline dot org**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, including some fanfictions that will be mentioned when pertinent, this plot belongs to me.**

" _The life of those who live always behind the mask is not pleasant or free from care."_ – Seneca the Younger, _On Tranquility of Mind_ translated by C. D. N. Costa

Chapter 2

"You want to take me out?" she asked.

Edward could hear it in her voice. Fear that he would let her down. Doubt that he would—could—be true to his word. And saddest of all, hope.

Nevertheless, there are matters of decorum, aren't there? Edward had obeyed the rules for nearly three months now. Long enough, surely, to have earned some redemption in his family's eyes. Her hesitancy annoyed him.

"I'll take you out," he heard himself say again.

"I won't be alone," Alice warned.

"Whatever, bring your friends. Just let me know how many so I can make reservations."

"If you're sure."

He had to stop himself from cursing. It wasn't her fault after all. The infinitely optimistic never do understand just how grating they are to the contentedly miserable. "It's no problem. I want to."

"Edward!" Alice's joy was plain.

It was enough to make Edward remember why he'd stopped taking her phone calls, her less than dulcet tones easy enough to make out even with the phone more than a few inches away from his ear.

"We're going to have so much fun!" she said.

He ignored the incongruity of that statement—to think that there was any one activity that both his stepsister and he would deem "fun."

When Alice first told him that she was moving back to Seattle to take over the management of a boutique, he'd balked. He didn't want her anywhere near him. He'd long since given up on trying to get along with his family.

But Alice remained undaunted. She was happy that she was going to be getting her own shop to run and because she was going to be moving closer to her brother Emmett and her parents, but if she was to be believed, she was also excited because she was going to be moving closer to her stepbrother _Edward_.

She had sent Edward email after email about her plans, so many emails that a small part of him had actually started to look forward to her arrival. That same small part of him even wanted to believe that perhaps he was capable of picking up again, rejoining the family, winning them over one at a time, starting with Alice. Maybe he could even bring himself to tolerate Emmett's company.

Edward had begun to entertain stratagems, all the while knowing that the challenge of behaving like an ordinary person while in family's presence might be more than he could handle. And now here he was, the audience waiting with baited breath for him to fail.

"Just take us to all your favorite places," Alice suggested.

"Sure." He tried to inject as much excitement as possible into that one syllable, but it came out sounding desperate. _No lollipop for you!_

He bid Alice farewell and hung up.

 _Take us to all your favorite places?_ He shuddered at the thought.

Edward still had a few minutes before his break was over. He looked out the window of the lounge, resuming the train of thought that had been interrupted when Alice called— _a chair thrown hard enough against the glass_ —would it just bounce off or would it actually break through?

Edward stared at the glass. Supposing the chair did break through, would the hole be large enough, or would the glass just crack, the noise drawing attention? Someone might rush in before he could manage to make the hole large enough for him to jump.

He pressed his fingertips against the cool glass.

A fall from this height might not be enough to kill him.

He glanced up. Bulbous clouds rolled together in a languid embrace. He wondered how many times a person had to consider suicide before the horror, the sense of frisson, evaporated. He should have kept track. A truly apathetic person wouldn't think _anything_ , including death, was worth the effort.

 _Hmm_.

It was idle speculation, of course. He didn't mean it. Not really. He wasn't _that_ depressed.

The alarm on his cell beeped. His break was over.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

"Thank you, sir. I don't know what I would have done without her. Thank you."

Edward gently tried to disengage himself from the man's grip.

"She's my life," the man repeated, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.

Edward glanced at the frail figure on the hospital bed, her hands fluttering delicately even in her sleep.

"She'll be fine," Edward lied. She wasn't going to be fine. She was going to grow increasingly weak until she died. Then what? Was her husband planning to follow her to the grave out of some misguided sense of loyalty?

"Oh sir," the man's fingers pressed into Edward's bicep with surprising strength. "Please, if there's ever anything I can do for you, please let me know." He proffered a business card and Edward took it, hoping that would end the ordeal.

"You'll come see us someday," the man predicted, releasing Edward's arm.

Edward beat a hasty retreat, stopping by the nurse's station to check on some test results.

"You going home now, Dr. Cullen?"

Edward glanced over his shoulder. Jessica Stanley was tapping a pen against her chin, watching him with an adoring expression.

She was an idiot. Edward was sure that she would run screaming if she knew what he really did to the women in his life.

Edward nodded curtly, unwilling to encourage a relationship that would do neither of them any good.

She perked up. "Some of the other nurses and I are going down to CoCo Sala for drinks if you want to come."

Edward couldn't help but notice the Chief Nurse, Mildred Cope, frowning at Jessica in disappointment.

"Sorry," Edward demurred. "Happy hours aren't really my scene."

"Oh. Well ok." Jessica was clearly struggling to keep the disappointment out of her voice. "Have a good night then!"

Two minutes later, Edward was outside the hospital and standing in the rain, realizing that he'd forgotten his umbrella in his locker. He glanced back at the doors of the hospital and narrowed his eyes. Suffer a minor drenching? Or, deliver himself back into the arms of overly needy hypochondriacs and horny nurses who'd happily go running to the board of trustees? _Fuck that_.

He threw his arm out for a cab. Of course the one that pulled up had an advertisement for a strip club on the side, the woman in the photo sporting artificially plump features. Edward grimaced at the sight and climbed in, giving the driver an address and scowling out the window at the rain. Oh, it was all fine and well that little kids and grandmothers had to look at ads for strip clubs on the sides of cabs, but God forbid the board of trustees find out where Edward really spent his nights. Edward would be out of a job so fast that his stethoscope would get caught in the door. They wouldn't care how discreet he was. _Ha!_ They'd probably get a kick out of exposing everything—bandying the story around like a vintage trading card at one of their damn country club mixers. The thought of Edward's mother or Alice hearing about it turned Edward's stomach.

The driver let him off in front of a coffee shop and Edward went inside. Getting a drink, he took a seat at a well-cushioned chair by the window where he could keep an eye on the front entrance of the bar just across the way.

 _A whisper._

Edward could hear the same old whisper in the back on his mind. The quiet whispering reminder that was just another symptom of the background panic had plagued him all day—a shy pain hiding its face but nonetheless unbearable for all its faux coyness. The anxiety had been tolerable today, but only with his jaw clenched and unceasing vigilance. Mustn't slip. Mustn't give way. Monster in angel's skin that he was and Jessica Fucking Stanley thinking she wanted a piece of him. Edward would ruin her and she'd never see it coming. But he couldn't let anyone know that, could he? He would offer a smile here, a pat on the head there. A sticker for Timmy who broke his arm falling off the merry-go-round. If only they knew.

Cover all the cracks and hide.

Fifteen patients today, all thanking Edward for his services, as if he was a hero.

Edward sat in the coffeehouse and watched a couple across the street walking into Breaking Dawn, hand in hand. He wondered if they'd walk out the same way. Perhaps they'd only managed to stay together as a couple because they were going to a place like Breaking Dawn. If so, it couldn't be all bad, could it? So what if Breaking Dawn's patrons weren't all cookie-cutter white bread American do-gooders?

Glancing down, Edward realized that his fingers had curled into fists in his lap.

He took a breath, forcing his hands to uncurl, and pressed his palms down on his knees.

It had been three months since he'd walked through the doors of Breaking Dawn.

 _I'll never go back_ , he thought to himself, but he wasn't sure which hell he was promising to forsake—the sham that was his life as a physician-hero or the bar down the street.

 _I could disappear in there. Gnaw off my own arm before I got out_.

Or.

 _Fifteen patients and a smile here, a pat there. Timmy, here's a sticker for you._

His cellphone rang. _Alice,_ again _._

He thought about not answering and letting it go to voicemail. But if anyone ever found out about Breaking Dawn, he would need Alice in his corner.

"Hello?" he tried to sound upbeat. _Why is it that I always have to sound so upbeat?_ he wondered. _You would think it would be enough that I haven't jumped out the window of the doctor's lounge yet._

"Edward, there'll be four of us, including you and me. Is that ok? Because if it isn't, I don't mind. I can make other arrangements. It won't bother me."

For just a second, Edward considered telling her that it _was_ too much. That he couldn't be there for her. Not now. Not ever. And not because of anything she'd done, but because he just wasn't here anymore. Gone.

"Alice, please stop." The gravel in his voice surprised him. He cleared his throat. "Four is fine. I'll pick you up at 6."

He held the cell away from his ear while she squealed.

"Thank you Edward! See you then!"

He hung up before she could squeak any more at him and shouldered his way out of the coffee shop, turning away from the bar and towards his apartment. He was exhausted anyhow. He had no business out tonight.

Fumbling in his pocket for his keys, he felt a square of cardboard. He pulled it out and scanned it before crumpling it up and throwing it away. _Bella Italia._ He wondered if the stupidly grateful husband would keep the restaurant after his wife died, or if her illness would eat up all of his dreams.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

 _Please God, let her have cancelled_ , Bella chanted in her head as she checked her cell again, but there was no message from Alice.

Bella closed her eyes and willed herself to calm down.

 _This is all your fault_ , she cursed herself.

Bella was the one who had cyber-stalked Alice. She was the one who'd sent a friend request to Alice through Facebook and then all but begged Alice to look her up once she got to Seattle.

And now, here was Bella, waiting on a curb on the edge of campus, waiting for Alice, and struggling not to give into her panic.

She tried to remind herself why she was doing this.

The last time Bella had seen her father, he had a tube under his nose feeding him oxygen. He said it was just a cold but she knew it was pneumonia.

That was two weeks ago. Bella felt extremely guilty for not visiting him since then. But she was working two part-time jobs on top of school and her teaching assistanceship. Of course, she still wasn't making enough to pay for that new treatment that her father's doctor had suggested. She had considered quitting school and doing the data-entry job full time, but even with that and part-time work, she'd only make about ten thousand dollars more a year, plus she'd lose her health insurance. And her father needed the treatment now. Not after a year of scrimping and saving.

Besides, she was so close to graduating. And after she graduated, she could get a real job and be making even more.

She couldn't help feeling guilty though.

And the worst part was the fact that Bella sometimes wondered if it was worth it. Her father was suffering. She wondered if she should just let nature take its course. At best, this new treatment would probably just delay the inevitable.

Notions like this just added a whole other layer of paralyzing guilt. If the Swan's had been rich, Bella's father would have already gotten the new treatment.

But if there was something that Bella could do to get the money, wasn't it up to her to do it?

And _that_ was why she was here waiting for Alice Cullen to pick her up. Bella's father just had to get over this last bout of pneumonia, and Bella would soon have the money for his new treatment.

"Bella!"

 _Damn_ , despite herself, Bella couldn't help feeling a little disappointed that Alice hadn't stood her up.

Alice's head was poking out of the front passenger's side window of a silver Volvo on the corner."Hi," Alice yelled again, waving her hand energetically.

Bella found herself waving back. _You're just acting_ , she told herself _._

But did that mean that Alice was just acting too? Bella could think of no explanation for Alice's overly-friendly reception of Bella's overtures. If Bella didn't know, she'd think that Alice had an ulterior motive.

For a split second, Bella wondered if Alice was actually planning some grand humiliation for Bella that night, as a sick form of entertainment.

But they weren't in high school any more. Alice couldn't do anything to hurt Bella.

So Bella tugged at the door handle and slid into the backseat. As her eyes shifted towards the driver, a jolt of electricity shot through her and she looked quickly away.

It was _him_! Edward Masen was driving the car.

Alice hadn't said anything about her brother, Edward (adopted Cullen), coming along.

It was too soon! Bella wasn't ready to face him!

"You don't mind sitting in the back do you?" Alice asked excitedly. "We just have to pick up my friend Rosalie and then we'll be good."

"That's fine," Bella said, trying to smile. She took a deep breath and made herself glance in _his_ direction again. Just the back of his head was enough to send another jolt of electricity through her frame, but she was expecting it this time. "Hello," she greeted him, and was proud that there weren't any tremors in her voice. Still, her voice sounded low and hollow to her ears.

"Hello," _he_ exhaled, eyes on the traffic.

So easy and inconsequential. This happy greeting, like it meant nothing.

A mess of insecurity, Bella couldn't decide whether it would be better to keep her eyes off of Edward, or to take the opportunity to study him in order to increase her tolerance.

She settled for studying her hands.

Fortunately, Alice was oblivious, jabbering away about her difficulties looking for an apartment now that she'd moved back to Seattle.

Then without missing a beat, Alice moved on to the subject of her new shop, complaining about a shipment of Louis Vuitton handbags she'd received that morning.

Bella nodded and smiled, pretending that she was following.

 _He_ didn't say a word.

After a while, Bella found herself eyes returning to his profile. She stared at his hands on the steering wheel. Fingers like snakes curling around the wheel, tensing and relaxing at odd intervals. Bella wondered if he was angry that she'd been invited. Had Alice warned him?

They stopped at a light and Alice paused in her monologue to pull out her cell, and cried out in disappointment after reading a text. "Rosalie can't come," she pouted. "She's got the flu."

Bella made practiced sounds of feigned concern for a person she'd never met and Edward's grip on the wheel relaxed slightly as he grunted. His eloquence astounded.

"We'll still have fun, won't we?" Alice asked.

Her brother grunted again, resuming his vice grip on the steering wheel.

 _Oh yes, we'll have fun_ , Bella thought. Edward clearly hated her, and she loathed him. Meanwhile, Bella was using Alice only to get to Edward, and Alice could only be interested in Bella as a sort of exotic pet. How could they not have a rip-roaring good time together?

Nevertheless, Bella was a little taken aback when it became clear that Edward was taking them to the Space Needle. The fucking Space Needle.

Tourist traps are all well and fine for tourists. But Bella had been living in Seattle for six years. She wasn't sure how long Edward had been living there, but the three of them grew up in a town only four hours away. Bella was sure that the Cullens must have visited the Space Needle before.

Which made it all the more strange that Alice and Edward seemed to be having a dandy time.

Bella stood beside them in front of a window, gazing down at the ground far below. Yes, it was _very_ far below, but it wasn't as if Bella was clinging precariously to a rock face with nothing but a fraying cord keeping her from certain death. She was perfectly safe. She was bored.

She couldn't help noticing, though, the strangely hopeful look on Edward's face as he gazed at the glass. Alice oohed and ahhed over all the tiny people that she could barely see, leaving Bella to cluck in agreement.

The continuing silence on Edward's part was truly starting to get on Bella's nerves. She was almost tempted to say something to him, just to see him snap.

Alice pulled out her cell phone and asked a fellow tourist to take their picture. Her brother raised a hand in objection, but the words of complaint stuck in Bella's throat. She didn't want to be in a picture. Not with them. She didn't want there to be any photographic evidence of this evening. But Alice had gotten as far as grabbing both of their arms and was pulling them back over to the window, when her cell chirped.

"Oh." She dropped their arms and hopped over to retrieve her phone. Bella looked out the window, uncomfortable with Edward's close proximity. She could see his reflection in the window. He was standing directly behind her, studying the view again. _If he pushed hard enough_ , Bella thought, _I would go right through the glass, and down._

"Sorry," Alice trilled. "It's the store. I feel like I should answer. You don't mind do you?"

 _Like it matters what we think_ , Bella said to herself as she shrugged.

And pretending not to eavesdrop, Bella did just that.

"What?" Alice asked into the phone. "Oh, ok. No, no problem. I'll be right there."

Bella took a steadying breath. She pretended to be fascinated with the line of birds making its way across the sky.

Alice sighed, snapping her cell shut. "Damn! I'm so sorry, you guys. I've got to go. The alarm keeps going off and the security company says the problem isn't on their end. You don't mind do you?"

Bella forced herself to smile. "Of course not, Alice. You don't need any help do you?"

"No. The shop's just two blocks away. I can walk. But you two don't have to call it a night."

 _What?_

"Alice, that's ok. I've already had enough…fun." Bella couldn't help sounding a little like a strangled duck.

"I insist. Edward will take you to do some more sightseeing and we'll get together again sometime soon."

Bella wondered if that phone call from the boutique was on the up-and-up. She wondered if Rosalie was even a real person.

There was more than enough justification for Bella's paranoia on this point. But although Bella could see why Alice might want to bail on her, Bella didn't understand why Alice would abandon her to Edward.

 _Alice couldn't be that cruel, could she?_

All this time, Bella had told herself that Alice didn't really know what had happened in Port Angeles.

But this—leaving Bella like this—Alice had to know what she was doing.

Oblivious, Alice walked Bella and Edward out to Edward's car, promising to call Bella so that they could set up another get-together, and apologizing for running off.

When Alice was out of sight, Edward opened the door for Bella. And Bella stared at him, wondering what kind of game he was playing.

"Getting in?" he asked.

Well, there was no harm in letting him drive her home, Bella decided.

He _would_ drive her home wouldn't he? Maybe she should just catch the bus.

"Sometime this century?" Edward asked, sounding bored.

Bella slid into the car and let him shut the door. He darted around the front and climbed into the driver's seat. She inadvertently cringed away from his side of the car, then forced herself to sit stiffly forward, not wanting to be too obvious.

But she'd already betrayed her feelings. If she couldn't even bear to sit in a car alone with Edward, how on earth was she going to go through with the rest of her plan?

"You don't have to—" Bella started. "If you don't mind taking me home, that would be just fine."

 _Please, please take me home_ , she thought _._

Plainly, there was no way she could go through with her plan after all.

"You don't want to spend time with me?" Edward asked as he backed his car out of the space. It was more than he'd said to her all evening. Bella could hear the smirk in his voice.

 _I'd rather spend time with a mortician who collects skullcaps_ , she thought _._

Instead of saying that, Bella, with infinite grace, opted to stutter: "I—I—only if you want to. I don't want to put you out."

"You're not putting me out. I had this entire evening set aside for my stepsister and her friends."

Bella watched him, desperate for a sign of his true intentions. He had yet to meet her eyes even once.

"Alice isn't here anymore," she replied. As if he didn't know that.

He grimaced. "But you still are."

Bella gave up on figuring him out and looked out the window, wondering how long he was going to continue this farce.

"So how long have you known Alice?" he asked.

 _What the motherfuck_?

Bella whirled around and gaped at him, sense memories descending on her in a pounding roar that blocked out everything else. The sight of Edward's face, his lips curled into a sneer whenever he'd catch a glimpse of her. His laughter as she'd trip on his leg in the hallway, her books flying. A velvet snarl— _God_ , the things he'd said to her.

The pressure in her throat threatened to cut off her breath as she recalled what had happened the one time that her mother had come to visit her in Forks.

Then Bella remembered what had happened in Port Angeles.

Edward had to be pretending. There was no way that he honestly didn't know who she was.

This was just some fucked up game.

But then, again, why should Edward remember her? She was as insignificant to him as a cockroach.

But she had been silent too long for polite conversation. She turned away, certain she wouldn't be able to carry on if she had to look at him.

"I've known Alice for a while," Bella said, unable to mask the sarcasm in her tone. "But we lost touch. Then I heard that she was moving to Seattle through a mutual friend. I sent her an email."

Edward nodded, and the awful silence threatened to descend again, but he broke it with another question. "What brought _you_ to Seattle?" he asked, his voice just dripping with false camaraderie. As if he wanted her to believe that he actually cared.

Edward might have forgotten who Bella was, but she knew who he was alright. And she knew just how little he cared about anyone but himself.

"I go to the University of Seattle," she said.

"That's right next to the hospital where I work."

 _Oh, how sweet, he's sharing too_. Bella hesitated for only a beat. "You're a nurse?"

"Doctor." He cleared his throat. "Doctor," he repeated, apparently for fear that she'd missed it the first time.

Bella hid her small smile at his pettiness, her first genuine smile of the night. "That must be very fulfilling. All the people you get to help."

Edward shrugged.

"One might almost say that it's kind of like redemption," Bella continued innocently.

Edward jerked the wheel, and then quickly corrected. "Why would you say that?" he asked, his voice eerily calm.

"No reason," Bella replied, barely having resisted the urge to grab onto the door handle. She refused to let him think that he was actually intimidating her. "So where're you taking me?" she asked, trying to change the subject. She tried to play off the slight quaver in her voice as laughter. "Canada? Your criminal lair?"

"Why?" Edward sneered, his true colors starting to come out. "You afraid that I'm going to add you to my collection of corpses?"

"Just your collection of hair."

Pulling up to a stoplight, Edward gave in, succumbing to the temptation that he'd been fighting all night, and let himself really look at the woman that his sister had befriended. He was able to take in no more than a slip of skin and a rope of brown waves before he had to look back at the road. "We're going to pay our respects," he said, then cringed at his own weak attempt at humor.

He wasn't sure why he was even bothering. Alice had spent the better part of the evening chirping and giggling like a schoolgirl at her first Ice Capades. But even Edward could tell that her friend, whose name he'd missed, was less than enthusiastic.

He'd wrongly assumed that the Space Needle would be a safe bet. The place was popular enough that hipsters thought it was ironically cool. Most importantly, it was _innocent_. A way to show his commitment to the kind of lifestyle that wouldn't cause his family any shame.

Alice certainly appreciated it. But her friend?

She was a bitch.

Then the gods who conspired to make Edward their plaything just had to set off the alarms in Alice's new shop.

Oh sure, he would show Alice's friend a good time.

He could behave normally for just one night.

Just then, Edward spied a space opening up on along the sidewalk, and he pulled into park.

"We're stopping?" the she-demon asked.

"Next stop on the tour," he confirmed, flying out of the car and hurrying around the front so that he could pay the she-demon the courtesy of opening her door, only to find that she was faster than him. Again. She'd pulled the same trick at the Space Needle.

But Edward was trying. He could have ditched the she-demon when Alice had bailed. The least Alice's friend could do was try to get along.

"So, aside from serial killers like you collecting hair, what else is there to do for fun in Seattle?" she asked as Edward led the way, their path winding under a bridge.

He could tell that she was nervous. And feeling somewhat penitent, he tried to put her at ease.

"We go traipsing under bridges," he said. "And visit trolls."

With that, they came to a halt a few feet in front of a massive troll fashioned out of a Volkswagon.

"Hmm," she considered, her eyes narrowing.

"If you ask a question, the troll will answer you," Edward explained.

She shook her head. "That's ok."

"You don't believe he can see your secrets?" Edward asked.

When she didn't reply, Edward said "I'll ask for you." He paused for effect, gazing up at the troll. "What should I ask? Oh yes—great and mighty Fremont Troll, has my sister's friend been a good girl tonight?"

Edward was hoping that would get a rise out of the she-demon, but she went on holding her silence.

Edward clicked his tongue. "He says you've been naughty. Doesn't think you're giving Seattle its due."

"I think the city will survive," she replied dryly.

Giving up, Edward turned to lead the way back to the car. "Did you know that the first revolving restaurant opened in Seattle in 1961?" he asked, because why the fuck not? He'd keep up the game.

For Bella's part, she had decided that it was all a test. Edward was fucking with her just to see how long it would take for her to break.

"No. I didn't know that," she said, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice.

"Washington also produces more apples than any other state and has more glaciers than 47 other states combined," he continued.

Bella decided to ignore that. "Where to now?" she inquired as they reached the car, pretending not to be annoyed that he was holding the door open for her again. Like he had a fucking shred of decency in his body.

"It's a surprise," he said with a smirk, closing the door behind her.

"Give me a hint?" she asked when he slid behind the wheel and put the car into drive.

"Ever heard of delayed gratification?" he taunted.

"I don't believe in it."

 _When you have to eat canned beans for dinner every day for a week,_ Bella thought, _the notion of having to wait for something when it's right in front of you becomes nonsensical_.

"You must not be doing it correctly," he chided.

"I suppose when you can have anything you want, you have to play games to keep yourself entertained."

Edward thought that was a strange thing to say. "What makes you think that I can have whatever I want?"

"Oh, I know all about you."

"Alice tell you some stories about me?" Edward knew he didn't have a right to be angry, but still.

Bella scoffed. "Just a few."

 _Why do I even bother?_ Edward asked himself. So he smirked. "Well, I hope I live up to my reputation."

Bella couldn't think up a reply to that, but fortunately it was a short ride.

This time, when Edward parked, he engaged the childproof lock so that the she-demons couldn't open her door until he came around and opened it for her.

Then, perhaps because Bella had in fact offended the Fremont Troll, Bella proceeded to trip over thin air.

When Edward snaked an arm around her waist, it was an involuntary reflex on his part.

Bella couldn't help freezing—another involuntary reflex—or jerking away when she felt the heat of Edward's hand burning through her thin shirt.

The top of Bella's head knocked into Edward's chin and, panicking she shoved against his chest and fell back against the car.

The arm wrapped around Bella's waist pulled the rest of Edward's frame towards her, and suddenly Edward's body was pressing Bella's against the door.

Bella didn't dare breathe.

Find himself in such a strange position, suddenly having trapped the she-demon against the car, Edward took a slow, measured breath before speaking. "I've noticed," he said, his voice raspy and low, "that you have yet to thank me for opening your door tonight."

Bella struggled to keep her voice even. "I won't thank you for something that I wish you wouldn't do."

"I'm only being a gentleman."

"A true gentleman would accede to a woman's wishes." Bella willed herself not to struggle, lest doing so encourage Edward to tighten his grip and cause her to be drawn even further into the snake's maw.

"Even when it's against her better interests?"

"You don't know anything about my interests. And very little of being a gentleman."

"I hardly think you're a judge of that," Edward tried to argue, but the words sounded unconvincing even to him.

For all he knew, Alice had told her friend everything about him. And there was something about the she-demon—now that he was seeing her up close—she seemed strangely familiar.

But her hair had fallen into her face and the light over their parking space had burned out.

"Would a gentleman keep me in such an uncomfortable position?" Bella still refused to move, concentrating on the fiery coil of Edward's arm around her waist to keep her grounded in the present.

A vision of Laocoon struggling against his serpentine attackers flashed through her mind.

Edward retreated, removing his arms from her waist, but moving no more than an inch away. A few beats passed, and still she remained frozen in place. He wondered at her stillness—her head turned stiffly to the side, as though held in traces, her iron resolve keeping her still.

She was intractable, her skin white and unmarked, like milk glass, her lips a soft pink against that fountain of hair.

It made him all the more eager to get a rise out of her. "Unfortunately, the only way to convince you of your mistake is to continue to antagonize you by opening doors."

"I have little patience for pretense." She still wouldn't look at him.

"It isn't pretense if I'm truly a gentleman."

"I should think that you'd appreciate a break from your performing schedule."

"Am I performing now?"

Bella looked him in the eye at that. "We're always performing. We never stop."

"Then why not let me perform the role of my choosing?"

"Because you do so poorly."

His eyes narrowed. "What did my sister tell you about me?"

"She didn't tell me that you would drive me to an unfamiliar garage, trap me against a car, and refuse to let me get away."

Before he could reply, a Mercedes swung up behind them.

Edward stood back and Bella stepped quickly away.

"My apologies mademoiselle," he said, bending low at the waist and waving his hand in a strange little flourish towards the exit of the garage.

Not for the first time, Bella asked herself just what the fuck it was that she thought she was doing.

But then she thought again about the cans of beans sitting on the shelf of her crappy apartment.

And so with a slight nod, she preceded Edward out of the garage. And when they were out on the street, and he held out his arm for her to take it, she only hesitated for a few seconds before doing so.

They walked in silence, going no more than two blocks before they reached the tail-end of a line of people curling down the street. Edward led her to the front of the line and smiled at a bouncer, who let them through an unmarked door with a nod.

Thus, Bella found herself sipping poorly mixed overpriced drink, sitting on a stool next to Edward in a club. _Oh, excuse me, a 'lounge_.'

It must have been a popular place, given the line waiting outside. Nevertheless, Bella found it cheap. Gaudier even than that fairytale cave of debauchery where she'd met her fairy godmother.

Lights flashed in varying hues of purple, making Bella feel even more anxious than she already was, and the music was too loud. Far too loud for anyone to carry on a conversation without shouting.

People were taking advantage of the noise by attempting to dance, but there wasn't enough space for that, so they gesticulated and pulsed in a veritable sea of flesh. A Hieronymous Bosch painting, maybe.

Bella had hastily sent a text while Edward was securing their drinks, and was beginning to wonder if the text had actually gone through when she noticed Edward trying to get her attention. She leaned towards him.

"Do you want another drink?" he scream-whispered into the side of her face.

She could feel his breath on her cheek. It was too intimate.

She shook her head. "I don't really drink," she scream-replied. "This isn't my–"

He wasn't listening though. She watched him glance around the club.

"Are you looking for someone?" she asked.

 _Or_ , she couldn't help the paranoid notion from occurring to her, _looking to make sure that no one sees me with you?_

He spun around and grinned in her direction. "Just checking out the action."

She started to reply. "I don't—"

"There's someone I have to say hi to, you'll be ok won't you?"

And he was gone.

Bella looked around. The wall behind her was covered in mirrors, magnifying and distorting the drunken revelry. Bella surreptitiously watched Edward in the mirror, his figure moving through the crowd.

 _Did he really see someone he knew or did he just want to get away?_ she wondered.

Then, catching a glimpse of her own reflection in the mirror, Bella realized that she could hardly recognize herself—the darkened eyes and the pink cheeks. She didn't usually wear much make-up, but her fairy godmother had insisted.

Despite the make-up, Bella couldn't school her features to imitate the manic glee of the other faces in the mirror, the heads thrown back in uproarious laughter.

She tried to make herself smile.

She felt like doing anything but.

She found Edward in the mirror again. He was dancing with a redhead, his hands on her hips, grinding up against her.

"Hey, baby." A man fell against Bella's stool.

She stiffened.

"Wanna dance?"

"I'm with someone," Bella replied.

She expected an argument but her suitor just sighed and disappeared back into the sea of people.

She ought to have accepted the offer, she realized. She ought to have tried—

If only so that Edward would see her.

But the idea of letting some stranger grope her like that—like Edward was groping his own dance partner—made her nauseous.

She looked at herself again in the mirror, her eyes narrowing until the outlines of her face blurred, a Medusa glaring back at her, ropelike hair twisting, squirming and struggling around her pale face.

Bella looked once more at Edward's reflection and saw him laughing. A surge of hatred coursed through her.

She wanted to destroy him.

She knew it was no good though. _He_ was _her_ destruction.

She felt the fabric of her skirt twisting between her fingers.

All of this was Bella's own fault of course. She'd gotten herself into this situation. She didn't belong here.

Bella checked her phone again. Still no response to her text.

If she left now, she could catch the 11:15 bus.

Meanwhile, on the far side of the room, Edward was feeling—

Uneasy.

Suspicious.

Angry.

He _hated_ dancing. But he was dancing now.

Edward had learned to dance his freshman year in college. He'd come home for Christmas break to find his stepsister Alice in a black mood. Normally, he would have just tried to avoid her. Edward had never really figured out how to interact with his step-siblings, Alice and Emmett, both of whom he had met at the hoary old age of fourteen. Neither of them knew what it was like to grow up walking on eggshells, waiting for a parent to take a swing at them. A bad day for them was a poor grade on a test or a kid at school making fun of them. And while Edward knew that Alice had it a trifle rough at school—unbeknownst to her, he'd run interference for her on more than one occasion—he still resented her sporadic shows of depression. She had no idea what it was really like to suffer.

So when Edward came home that first Christmas in college to find Alice in low spirits, he'd blown it off at first. "Why aren't you out with that friend of yours?" he'd asked, meaning Swan, of course, refusing to use the girl's name. He didn't understand why his stepsister had to have a horrible girl for a best friend, but if it made Alice happy, then he didn't want to stand in the way. "She's busy," Alice had replied, which sounded like bullshit, but far be it from Edward to probe any further.

And when, Esme, Edward's stepmother, had insisted that they all gather together to decorate the tree, Edward did his best to be a dutiful little step-son, acting like one of the family, while Alice sat in front of the tv, ignoring everyone else and moping. She was watching one of those old black-and-white movies with lots and lots of dancing. _White Christmas_ or _Holiday Inn_ , and sighing morosely. Finally, Edward couldn't take it anymore. Just as he was about to snap at her, Alice had said "I wish that I could dance like that."

"I can show you how," Esme had said.

"Really?" a hopeful Alice had asked.

An aggravated Edward had rolled his eyes, because _Of course, they would all start dancing, just like that_.

Then his father, Carlisle, had added, "Edward and Emmett, you too."

Which wasn't fair, because Edward had already been playing nice and Emmett was just a kid.

But Edward had joined the lessons, just to please his family, because he was _trying goddammit_. And he had hated every minute of it. He hated the way the way that his family members would look at him, as if they felt sorry for him. He hated the guilt he felt for that. He hated the way that he'd try to laugh, just to fit in, and they'd throw him pitying glances, as if they knew that he was faking. Didn't they understand that _this_ was the reason he was always such a dick to them? He did it to wipe those looks off of their faces. Because he didn't deserve their pity. He didn't deserve to have anyone feeling sorry for him. Edward's birth mother had taught him that.

Aggravated though he was by the dancing lessons, when Edward returned to college after the winter break, he found that he could put his newfound knowledge of dancing to good use. Young women of a certain type will sometimes flatter themselves into believing that there is something classy about waltzing or foxtrotting, as if the ability to coordinate one's limbs in accordance with a syncopated rhythm somehow elevates a woman above her station, even while said female is attired in the most revealing of ensembles.

Edward still hated dancing. If anything, he hated dancing even more, because in this setting it was clearly just a sham, a pretense at civility, and (in his opinion) an unnecessary and inefficient preamble to sex. Yet Edward often found himself paired up with women who loved to dance, and was thus forced into performing the strange little courtship rite that is fancy footwork more often than he would have liked.

But as time passed, Edward found that he was less and less willing to invest the effort required to perform a proper courtship. He wasn't, in fact, in the least bit interested in a _relationship_. Indeed, if the women he'd "dated" were to be believed, Edward didn't even know how to conduct himself in a relationship.

Edward would've been the first to admit that he'd never been in love. He had, certainly, been in lust. One might have said that _lust_ was his guiding principle when it came to women. To be sure, Edward had never had maintained any sort of friendship with a woman. For him, women were divided into _regulars_ (sexually speaking) and _everyone else_.

But, to be fair, Edward had never really had a friend of the male sex either. Edward had guys that he hung out with, study partners, and coworkers, but not _friends_. Not people upon whom he could have relied or to whom he could have confessed his deepest, darkest secrets. Edward had simply never trusted anyone enough for that. He grew up in a rough neighborhood, and his home had never been the sort of place into which a kid would've invited friends. By the time that he left that behind and moved in with his father and his new family, Edward was already fourteen. Too old to learn new tricks. Or so he told himself.

So Edward just _pretended_ to fit in. Learned to dance one Christmas, because his family wanted him to. Dancedwith women because the women in question enjoyed it.

Oh, there were exceptions. On occasion, dancing wasn't just a waste of time. It wasn't just a matter of delayed gratification. When done correctly, dancing, by its very nature, increased the suspense of desires long denied, and when fulfilled, enhanced the pleasure. It was a contest. A game.

But Edward wasn't supposed to be playing that sort of game anymore. He wasn't supposed to be chasing after every woman he met. He was trying to turn over a new leaf.

And _this_ —what he was doing right now—grinding up against a woman he'd just met in a nightclub, _this_ wasn't _dancing_. There was no artistry to this desperate sort of clinging. It required no skill and it wasn't a build-up to anything. This sort of dancing was just a vulgar display of sublimated instincts.

It was, however, giving Edward an excuse to avoid Alice's friend. Dancing with a redhead who'd just thrown herself on him, Edward was taking the opportunity to regroup while at the same time covertly studying said friend.

Who the hell did she think she was? Too sophisticated to appreciate ironic tourist traps. And now bored with one of the trendiest clubs in Seattle. _Fucking hipster._

Then she'd accused him of—of whatever the hell she'd been accusing him of in that garage.

Not to mention that Alice's disappearance had been a tad too convenient. If Edward didn't any know better, he would think it was a set up.

Edward wished that the she-demon—Alice's friend—would just come out with it already. Just tell him the truth about whatever was going on so that they could go their separate ways. She was clearly miserable—

He couldn't possibly have offended her so badly in such a short amount of time. Except for that mishap at the car.

 _Fuck_. He suddenly wondered if Alice had designed the evening as a test to see if her step-brother could be trusted to behave with women. And he'd already failed.

Gritting his teeth, Edward glared again at Alice's so-called friend.

Her posture emanated cool disdain as she surveyed the room, her eyebrow cocked at the merriment.

Where had Alice found her? An escort company?

Would Alice really hire a prostitute just to see if he'd take the bait?

 _If so_ , Edward thought, _might as well get Alice's money's worth_.

Smirking, he started to pull away from the redhead, when he heard a Russian accent lilting in his ear.

Two arms snaked around him from behind, so that he was sandwiched between two bodies, between the redhead and—and _Tanya_.

"Edward, oh it is so _good_ to see you," Tanya breathed into his ear.

Fucked up as it was, he felt himself relaxing.

Ideally, Edward wanted nothing to do with Tanya. He had been avoiding her for months. Their "relationship" had been based solely on sex, and he was trying to move past all of that now.

But Tanya could be trusted to help him get rid of Alice's friend.

Carefully disengaging himself from the redhead, he turned to face Tanya.

"There's someone I want you to meet," he said.

Tanya laughed. "Of course." She pressed her hips against his, her hand trailing down his stomach towards his pants. "I'm so eager to meet _him_."

He pulled her hand away. "No, _her_. Do you see her? Over at that table, alone? The one in the black. She's my sister's friend."

Tanya scanned the crowd and narrowed her eyes. "Edward, she's positively… _delicious_."

Edward shook his head at Tanya's reaction. If anything, the she-demon looked even more bored now than before. Hardly "delicious."

"Is she for us?" Tanya asked.

Edward couldn't help laughing. He had been hoping that Tanya would help inject some normalcy into the evening and here she was threatening to make it even worse.

But he could just see it. Alice's friend fleeing in a darkened garage as Tanya and he chased her. An image of Bernini's _Apollo and Daphne_ flashed through his mind.

"Tanya, I'm trying to get rid of her. I'm barely maintaining my grip here."

Tanya pouted. "You never let me have any fun."

"Some other time," he lied and gave her a kiss on the cheek before turning to pull her through the crowd.

But he was too late. The she-demon was gone.

 **AN:**

 **Thanks for reading.**

 **Rec: NewTwilightFan's** _ **Monolith.**_


	3. Chapter 3

**Warning: Brief reference to physical abuse of a child.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyer. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, including some fanfictions that will be mentioned when pertinent, this plot belongs to me.**

"Woman is never so fierce as when her hatred is goaded by shame." Juvenal, translated by Hubert Creekmore

Chapter 3

Edward Cullen was trying to work out a problem.

Which was why he was going to happy hour.

Edward Cullen did not go to happy hours. He occasionally had dinner and drinks with colleagues, but that was it. He thought that the very concept of a "happy hour" was a contradiction in terms, there being nothing particularly "happy" about either the hour or the morose imposition of glee in a public setting.

Yet here he was, striding into Newton's at that dismal hour when all good boys and girls were getting their drink on.

All so that he could find out his test results.

An ethical physician would have just called Edward with the numbers of his cell count, but apparently Alice wanted to tell him in person whether or not he'd passed the test with her little friend, the she-demon who'd abandoned him at the club the other night.

Of course, Alice had not phrased her invitation in such blatant terms. Ostensibly, Edward was attending said "happy hour" in order to meet Rosalie, his brother Emmett's girlfriend. Emmett would be there as well, which made sense, except that Edward and his brother had lived in the same city for two years and had never once met for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or "I just fucked your girlfriend" coffee.

Alice, pretending to be oblivious to the ongoing animosity between her siblings, had arranged the evening.

And she was the first one Edward saw as he came through the door of the bar, waving enthusiastically at him.

 _I suppose this means that I passed the test,_ he thought. But he remained wary, unwilling to let his hopes get up.

Edward worked his way through the crowd, trying not to bristle at a pair of jocks who stumbled into him as they argued over the merits of dollar drafts versus mixed drinks.

Newton's was right next to the hospital where Edward worked, which would have been convenient except that this meant that it was also right next to the university. Consequently, it was filled to bursting with students all too eager to purchase bad drinks at low prices.

Making it to his family's table, Edward forced himself to smile. "Alice," he said warmly. "Emmett," this less warmly.

Emmett nodded stiffly.

"Edward," Alice began far too merrily, "this is Rosalie."

"My girlfriend," Emmett added quickly, clearly recalling what had happened the last time this sort of information had slipped Edward's memory.

Edward nodded in the blonde's direction. She was fucking gorgeous, but of course that was neither here nor there so far as Edward was concerned.

Of course.

"I got a pitcher," a voice said behind Edward, and he froze.

The fucking she-demon had apparently been invited to the so-called "happy hour."

Edward stared at her in dismay as she set the pitcher carefully down on the table and sat.

"I forgot to say before, I like your outfit," Alice complimented her.

The she-demon blushed, glancing down at her top, a blue scallop blouse that exposed her collarbones.

Edward's eyes trailed along her exposed neck, following stray strands of hair to a messy bun, where a pair of glasses just happened to be perched.

She looked like a fucking librarian.

 _A quiet, mousy little librarian who likes to scream your name when she comes_ , Edward thoughtmaliciously, feeling betrayed all over again. He was sure it was a set-up.

For her part, Bella was relishing in the warmth of Alice's approval, especially since Bella had refused to wear the outfit that her fairy godmother had picked out for this evening's excursion, insisting instead on her own thrift shop finery. As it was, Bella was still getting used to the other changes her fairy godmother had demanded: a new haircut and make-up, though it was just mascara and lip gloss.

"We're gonna play a game of darts," Emmett announced, standing. "Wanna come?"

Edward eyed Bella.

She eyed him back.

"I'm not in the mood for games," Edward said, crossing his arms.

"I never play," Bella replied. And realizing that her tone was a little too sharp, she shrugged, trying to soften it.

Scoffing at whatever was going on between Edward and Bella, Emmett left with an indulgent Rosalie in tow. Alice gazed wistfully after them.

"Why don't you go play, Alice?" Bella asked, not because she wanted to be alone with Edward but because she was still trying to figure out Alice's angle in all of this.

"But I haven't had a chance to spend any time with you," Alice replied a bit too cheerfully for Bella's taste.

"I have it on good authority that I'm stuck in this city for another year at least. I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to catch up."

"If you're sure—" Alice paused uncertainly.

Bella waved a hand, and Alice went off to join Emmett and Rosalie.

Having observed this strange exchange without a word, Edward poured himself a beer from one of the two pitchers. He watched Bella warily as he sipped, waiting for her to drop the hammer.

But she held her tongue, running a finger over the whorls in the table as she watched the game of darts unfolding on the other side of the bar.

"You left," Edward said, deciding to take the offensive. He was still more than a little put out over the forty-five minutes that it had taken him to escape Tanya's talons after the she-demon had disappeared. (Never mind that he'd been grateful at first when Tanya had showed up, imagining that she'd help him escape from Alice's friend.)

The she-demon glanced at him under hooded eyes. "You looked busy. I didn't want to bother you."

"It's customary for companions of an evening to bid each other farewell when they part company," he replied stiffly, the formality of his speech underscoring his annoyance.

She cocked an eyebrow. "Funny, I thought I was sitting alone in a boring nightclub surrounded by strangers."

"It's a matter of civility," he insisted.

She knew that she was doing this all wrong—she wasn't supposed to be antagonizing him—but she couldn't help it. "What do you know about civility, Masen?" she asked.

 _Masen?_ Edward felt something inside of him twist. How could she possibly know about that name?

"Do we know each other?" he asked pointblank. "Did we know each other before the other night, I mean?"

She grimaced. "Really? You're pretending that you don't remember me?" She chuckled nervously. "This is a joke."

"I'm sorry. I don't remember who you are."

Bella's smile disappeared. "Don't say sorry to me, Masen. I don't want your apologies."

"The name's Cullen," Edward corrected her. _Who the fuck was she already?_

"You'll always be Masen to me."

Edward couldn't believe that Alice would have just told some stranger—

But now that he thought about it, the she-demon did seem a little familiar.

 _Fuck._

Edward gaped at her as the truth dawned on him. "Beast."

"At your service," she grimaced again, her eyes dropping to the table.

Naturally, Alice, Rosalie and Emmett chose just that moment to return to the table.

"Who died?" Emmett boomed, noticing the look of horror on Edward's face.

"God and morality, but I won't tell if you don't," Bella replied with a smirk.

Edward shook his head. This couldn't be happening. "Don't you have any sense of self-preservation?" he hissed at her.

She laughed. She fucking laughed, looking him over. "You're not the worst monster I've ever seen."

"No, you see something much worse every time you look in the mirror," Edward snapped, ignoring Alice and Rosalie's gasp.

Bella flinched but she recovered quickly. "Masen and I were just getting reacquainted. Can you believe that he didn't recognize me?"

"Alice didn't tell me," Edward explained. "Besides, you used to be a smart girl. I can't believe you'd be this stupid, turning up like this."

"Turning up like this?" Bella glared at Edward. "In this bar? Newton's is right next to campus. Lots of students come here. Or maybe you mean turning up in your city? You want me to move? Am I banned from Alice's life as well?"

"I can have whoever I want as my friend," Alice interrupted. "Haven't you gotten over all of that by now, Edward?"

"D'you guys hate each other or something?" Rosalie asked, her eyes darting between Bella and Edward.

Emmett whistled under his breath. " _Hate_ 's putting it lightly."

Bella shrugged. " _I_ 'm willing to let bygones be 's done is done."

"Bullshit. What's your game?" Edward demanded. "Is this some kind of punishment? Do you think you can just come waltzing back into my life and get revenge?"

"What are you, twelve?" Bella asked. "Believe it or not, my world does not revolve around you, Edward Masen. I'm not here to _punish_ you. I'm not your crack addict mother doling out beatings every time you wet the bed."

Edward wasn't surprised to hear Bella go there, but Alice was clearly taken aback by Bella's viciousness. It was some consolation to Edward that his sister was getting a chance to see what her so-called dear old friend was really like, because Edward wasn't completely to blame for everything that had happened.

"Are you done?" Edward asked. "Don't you have a _Take Back the Night_ rally to get to?"

"Actually," Rosalie interjected, "I've organized a couple of those rallies. I think it's kind of messed up that you're mocking them."

"Edward, could you at least _try_ not to antagonize my friends?" Alice pleaded.

Edward crossed his arms. "I was here first. I'm your brother. A Cullen. The Beast can leave."

"The Beast?" Rosalie asked.

"It's my nickname," Bella shrugged, with this sick smile that just annoyed the crap out of Edward (like she was proud of her nickname or something). She explained: "Like Belle, only not. Isn't that right, Masen?"

Edward didn't respond.

"Why do you call him Masen?" Rosalie wanted to know.

"It's his name."

Edward snapped. "My _name_ is Cullen." After all, Carlisle Cullen _was_ his father. Edward's mother had put Masen on the birth certificate, but Cullen had been Edward's legal name for over a decade now.

Bella snorted. "You can dress a whore in white and send her to church, but she's still a whore."

Edward smirked. "And you'd know so much more about that than the rest of us."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alice put her head in her hands.

"Oh, I have it on good authority that you know a little about whores yourself," Bella retorted.

"Like I'm supposed to believe that you've found someone willing to touch you for free."

"Christ, Edward, what the hell is wrong with you?" Emmett interrupted at last.

There was a moment of silence before Bella started to stand. "Alice, I'm sorry. I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I'll go."

"No!" Alice shouted, dropping her hands. "You were my best friend growing up. And Edward's my brother. There's no reason why he can't be nice to you. Edward, shut the fuck up already!"

Edward clenched his jaw, wishing that just for once his so-called siblings could take his side. But then they weren't really related. They were Esme's children, and Carlisle wasn't even their father. Not really.

Bella sat back down, biting her lip.

 _That's right, biting her lip,_ Edward observed. _We might as well be back in high school again for all that she'd changed_.

Why did it take Edward so long to recognize her? She still had the same hair, the tendrils snaking out of her bun like they wanted to snap you up. The same milk white skin.

For a minute, silence settled over their corner of the bar. Edward watched Bella take a deep breath. He braced himself for another assault.

"So, Emmett," she started, "I hear you're a sports writer now."

Edward narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

"Uhh, that's right," Emmett floundered. "Do you know my work?"

She smiled weakly at him. "The only sports I know anything about were played in Roman amphitheaters."

"Ooh, you watched _Spartacus_?"

Bella laughed. "No, but my students are mostly guys. They like blood and combat, so I try to accommodate them."

The high proportion of male students in Bella's sections had shocked her at first. The other teaching assistants never seemed to have that problem. Not that it was a problem, _per se_ , but it had taken her a while to get used to it—to facing four classes of twenty college-aged guys every week without retreating back into the oversized sweatshirts and baggy jeans that she'd once hid behind. She had forced herself to shed her camouflage once she began grad school, desperate to just be normal. To _seem_ normal.

"You're a teacher?" Rosalie asked.

"I'm a TA. A teaching assistant. I'm getting my doctorate."

"You're still in school?" Edward asked, seizing the opportunity to jump in. "What's taking you so long?"

Bella's smile fell. "No reason. It just is."

It had been hard for Bella to complete an undergraduate degree while working a full-time job. But she had refused to take out the loans that she would've needed to concentrate solely on school.

Of course, her promise not to take out any loans had all gone to naught with her father's setback. Now she was in fifty thousand dollars in debt. The loans were in deferment until she graduated, which was just another reason that she couldn't afford to quit school and take that full-time data entry job.

"I guess we can't all be over-achievers," Edward observed drily.

"Guess not."

"You should let your students watch _Spartacus_ in class," Emmett suggested.

Bella tried to sound cheerier than she felt. "I make them reenact hoplite warfare."

"Hop-what?" Rosalie asked.

"I give them shields made out of poster board and make them march in ranks."

"Demonstrate for us!" Alice demanded.

"Oh, no."

"You have to!"

"It takes coordination. I'm not that graceful."

Rosalie chuckled, "I don't know. It kind of looked like you were tap-dancing all over Edward's ass a minute ago."

Everyone but Edward laughed. "That isn't funny," Edward commented quietly.

Bella's eyes snapped to Edward's. "It's kind of funny, Masen," she said, her voice free of hostility. "Oh relax. It's not the end of the world."

"Just get it over with," Edward ordered, very nearly snarling.

She frowned. "Get what over with?"

"You're going to tell them, aren't you?" Edward was ready for it. His arms were shaking, his muscles were so tense.

"Masen, I'm not going to tell them anything." Her voice held a tone of warning. If Edward said a goddamn word—

"What is he talking about?" Alice asked.

"Masen's just," Bella struggled to cover for Edward's behavior. "Masen's not quite over high school, I think."

"I'm just fucking fine," he insisted.

"Right," she smiled, trying to defuse the attention. Pressing her hands down on the top of the table and standing, she looked at everyone else. "Ok, so now I'm suddenly glad I never got to sit at the cool kid's table, even when Alice abandoned me to go join them." Bella laughed hollowly, her poor joke falling flat. "I'll be back in a minute. I need a stronger drink."

Grateful for the reprieve, Bella spun around and headed towards the bar. The crowd was mostly students—many of whom she'd TAed for in the past—and they parting easily to let her pass. She tugged at her bun until her hair cascaded down her back in the bouncy waves that Edward remembered.

 _Fucking Medusa_ , he thought, watching her go.

"Edward!" Alice yelled, slamming down her glass. "Get your shit together."

Emmett and Rosalie's added their own comments, more or less agreeing with Alice, but Edward ignored them, sitting in silence until Bella returned to the table. She blushed as she stumbled inelegantly before taking a seat.

"Why wouldn't you just tell me who you were?" Edward asked.

She looked at him speculatively, her head tilted to the side. "I was curious to know how many stupid things you could say in as short a time as possible. It was like a Japanese game show. I kept waiting for someone to sound the gong."

Emmett cracked up, but then he groaned at the state of their beer supply. "We need another pitcher," he said.

"I'm sorry," Bella said. "I should have gotten one when I went up."

"No problem," Emmett said. "Besides I want to get some shots too."

"I'll help," Alice offered.

Rising, Emmett instructed Rosalie: "If my brother misbehaves, break his arm."

"Oh I will," she promised.

Edward rolled his eyes as Emmett and Alice left the table.

"Everyone just _hates_ you, don't they?" Rosalie said, grinning at him, and he couldn't help grimacing as a genuine burst of laughter peeled out of Bella's lips at her words, a chorus of bells. The noise set Edward's teeth on edge.

 _No sane person could possibly be carrying on like her._

Then again, if Bella _was_ crazy, maybe she'd forgotten what had happened all of those years ago in Port Angeles.

Edward had to know. "I suppose you're right," he started. "High school is over and done with. Might as well forget it."

Bella fixed him with a steely expression. "I remember _everything_." There was venom in her tone.

So he was right. "And you haven't let it go," he pointed out, "despite what you say. I can hear it in your voice."

Bella shook her head. "I'm not controlled by my past."

"You are though." He leaned towards her, knowing she would lean away, and when she did, he smirked. "I think you're a scared little girl trying to prove otherwise. Go home little girl. There be monsters in these here waters."

"You think I'm scared?" she asked, her voice trembling.

"I know it. For all that you keep trying to prove otherwise."

"I never try anything. I just do it," she said, her voice suddenly firm. "Wanna try me?"

Edward leaned back. "I would like nothing better."

She glared at Edward for a second before flouncing off of the stool, surprising him as she disappeared into the crowd, which once again parted easily to let her pass.

"This is by far the most entertaining happy hour I've ever had the privilege of attending," Rosalie announced.

Edward watched Bella go up to the bar and order a drink, then head over to the music to make a selection, while Emmett stood at the other end of the bar, chatting to the other bartender. Alice was nowhere in sight. In a minute, Bella was back at the table with two tequilas, complete with lime wedges and a salt shaker.

Edward cocked an eyebrow.

"Come on," Bella urged.

He stared at her.

"You going to make me do this shot off of Rosalie?"

He exhaled in a rush, pushing his chair back so that Bella had room to stand in front of him.

A splash of anxiety suddenly hit the base of Bella's spine as she grabbed the back of Edward's chair, but she forced it away as she threw a leg over his lap. The alcohol she'd already consumed certainly appeared to be helping to quell her nerves.

As the song she'd selected came on overhead—White Zombie, of course—Bella recalled the way that Edward had been dancing with the redhead the other night at the club.

She took a test grind, nowhere near Edward's crotch, but close enough.

 _What the fuck are you doing?_ she asked herself, even as she took another test grind.

But her fairy godmother had scolded her for thinking too much.

Hands still on the back of Edward's chair, Bella rose up, squeezing her thighs around his for leverage.

Tossing her hair over her shoulder, Bella remembered how very angry her fairy godmother had been over her flight from the club.

And when Bella had confessed to having second thoughts, her fairy godmother had actually raised a hand as though to strike Bella. But instead of hitting her, Bella's fairy godmother had grabbed Bella's arm, shaking her as the curses few out of her mouth.

Letting go of the chair, Bella slid forward so that she was actually sitting on Edward's crotch, then threw herself backwards, her hair brushing the floor before she sat up and grabbed the shot glass.

" _I never try anything. I just do it,_ " came over the speakers.

Bella ran her tongue over Edward's collarbone.

" _Wanna try me_?" the song continued.

Bella sprinkled the requisite salt over Edward's skin, ducked low to lap it up, then continued lapping as she slowly poured the drink down his neck.

When she came up for the lime, she was surprised to find that Edward had placed it in his mouth.

Bella almost hesitated, but she could still feel her fairy godmother's nails digging into her arm. So grabbing Edward's shoulders, Bella pulled him forward. Sucking on the lime, careful not to actually touch his lips— _I fucking hate you,_ she thought—Bella slowly ground her crotch against his, not thinking, not breathing, just being, for forty five oh so short second until…

A single traitorous memory rose unbidden: The look on Edward's face when Bella had reminded him who she was.

She stared into Edward's eyes, the two of them looking at each other, not flinching.

 _Come on motherfucker_ , she thought.

Electricity shot through her.

 _I'm like a serial killer_ , she'd told herself, _I can't be killed_.

Bella pulled back suddenly and the lime fell on the floor.

Steadying herself, Bella dug her fingers into Edward's shoulders, driven now not by lust or hate but—

 _How do you name this emotion?_ she wondered. Hands shaking and heart clamoring. Could it be fear?

And then self-awareness poured in like fumes from a charnel house.

Because Bella could feelhim.

 _Feel_ him.

 _No_.

Logic struggled to process the contradiction.

For all her fairy godmother's hopes, Bella had never actually expected the plan to work. She'd never expected Edward to be—

Attracted to her.

Bella made to stand up but he grabbed her shoulders, holding her in place, his fingers pressing just a little too deeply into her arms, not enough to leave a bruise, but causing a tiny jolt of pain, enough to set off a chain reaction, a light exploding in the back of her head. A white pain with the memory of the back of her head hitting a wall, and her cheek scraping down the brick as she fell.

She continued staring into Edward's eyes and it was too much

Too much _feeling_.

And she remembered his voice in her ear, in a tone that was younger, smoother than he could manage now, all of these years later. She remembered how he'd asked her "Your mother teach you any tricks?"

She wrenched herself off of him at last.

She felt sick.

She was shivering in that sweltering bar, sweat pouring off of her in the early September heat as she fucking shivering.

What the fuck had she done? This was a college hangout. She had TAed some of the students here.

And yet here she was, giving someone a lap dance.

Bella was only just beginning to realize the full enormity of her actions when Alice and Emmett returned to the table.

Rosalie laughed, saying that they'd missed all of the fun.

Looking at everything and nothing at the same time, Bella cleared her throat. She tried to force herself to turn in Edward's direction, but she couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes again. She had practically assaulted him. After what had happened at Port Angeles, she, of all people, should have known better. "I'm sorry. I–"

Rosalie burst out laughing again. "Bella, I don't think that's something you ever have to apologize to a guy for. Edward seemed to be enjoying himself."

"Still," Bella said. She made herself actually look at Edward then, and recoiled when she saw him glaring back at her.

Glancing quickly from Emmett to Rosalie, she continued hastily. "It was nice seeing you again, Emmett, and meeting you Rosalie." She nodded at Alice. "Thanks for inviting me."

"You don't have to go," Alice argued, with such compassion that for a split second Bella actually wondered if she could make herself forget the way Alice had once tossed her away like garbage.

But it would be too hard to forget.

"It's alright," Bella lied. "I have to work on a paper anyhow."

And she left.

Yeah, she was running, but Bella wasn't giving up. Not by any measure.

The Cullens had once used her—just used her and then threw her away—so why shouldn't Bella return the favor?

 **AN: Thanks for reading.**

The lines at the beginning of White Zombie's "Thunder Kiss '65" (" _I never try anything. I just do it,_ " " _Wanna try me_?") are from _Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!_

 **Rec:** Without A Smile by melistories "I hardly slept last night as it was. Mr. Cullen ran out of the office shortly after I stopped and I thought about boxing up my things but decided to wait until I was officially fired before doing anything rash." "You mean rash like breaking out in a song-and-dance routine in front of your boss?" Rosalie snickered. Twilight - Rated: T - English - Romance/Humor - Chapters: 34 - Words: 59,584 - Reviews: 2505 - Favs: 1,184 - Follows: 1,589 - Updated: Jun 21 - Published: May 28, 2015 - Bella, Edward – Complete


	4. Chapter 4

**Warning: Brief reference to suicidal thoughts. If you live in the USA and need help, text "Go" to 741741 or call 1-800-273-8255. Other support services available at www dot crisistextline dot org**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, including some fanfictions that will be mentioned when pertinent, this plot belongs to me.**

" _On her the goddess flings a snake from her dusky tresses, and thrusts it into her bosom, into her inmost heart…Gliding between her raiment and smooth breasts, it winds its ways unfelt and, unseen by the frenzied woman, breathes into her its viperous breath…the taint, stealing on in fluent poison, thrills her senses and wraps her bones with fire…'Bacchus!' she shrieks. 'You alone,' she shouts, 'are worthy of the maiden!_ '" - Virgil _Aeneid_ trans. H. Ruhston Fairclough

Chapter 4

The next time Edward saw Bella, it was in also in a bar. He was sans family this time. In fact, his family had no idea that he came to bars like Breaking Dawn.

He had gone three months since walking through the doors of this particular establishment. Three months.

Not that he needed places like Breaking Dawn to satisfy his—

Addiction. Why call it anything less?

It took getting caught having sex at work for Edward to realize just how serious his addiction had gotten. He could have been fired. As it was, he was still worried that the nurse in question would try to accuse him of sexual harassment.

Regardless, 'the incident' was enough for Edward to realize just how out of control he had become. And he knew that it would be a waste of time trying to taper it back. He needed to go cold turkey.

Which was why he had forced himself to stay away from Breaking Dawn so long.

This change in Edward's extracurricular activities meant that he had much more free time on his hands. And more energy.

He'd resumed his running regimen, and it had helped to some extent. Pushing himself as hard as he could. Running in all weather, through the last hot, humid months of summer, until he was beyond exhausted, dripping with sweat and ready to collapse. The rhythmic sound of his breathing and the pounding of his feet against the pavement was soothing. Almost like meditating.

But today, for some reason, he didn't feel like running. He didn't feel like even trying.

He felt, instead, like going up to the roof of the hospital and throwing himself off.

Instead, he went to Breaking Dawn.

It was the lap dance that pushed him over the edge. That fucking lap dance.

What the hell did Swan think that she was doing? Oh, it was clear that she was trying to aggravate him, but far be it for him to try and understand why she'd go about aggravating him in that manner.

There had never been anything sexual to their relationship. There was a very brief period when they were almost acquaintances, but they were hardly friends. And there certainly wasn't anything romantic to their association.

As for Edward's reaction to the lap dance, well, he was human, wasn't he? What's more, he was an addict. One symptom of his condition was an attraction to the perverse, and if a lap dance from Swan wasn't perverse, then he didn't know what was.

Swan had nearly caught him masturbating once, back when they were both still teenagers. She was always coming over to his house, ostensibly to see Alice but largely, he suspected, to pester him. On the occasion in question, she'd run straight into the bathroom, opening the door that he thought he'd locked, but obviously hadn't. Her shriek of horror at finding the bathroom occupied was followed shortly by a demand to know what he'd been doing, then her stunned declaration that he was—clearly, and despite his vigorous denials—masturbating. A whole year went by before she let it go. She would burst into laughter whenever she saw him, a knowing look in her eye, like there was something wrong with him for masturbating. Worst of all, Edward was never entirely sure that she'd kept the story to herself. At the very least, he was sure that she would have told Alice. He dreaded his stepsister joining in the mockery, followed immediately by his stepbrother. But neither of them ever said a word.

Regardless, Edward persisted in counting the incident among Swan's many crimes.

He had no doubt that Swan had kept a corresponding count of his so-called crimes against her, but he was sure that any offense he might have given her was intended as self-defense on his part.

Edward couldn't use that excuse for what happened with Swan's mother or that night in Port Angeles, of course. But Edward didn't see any of those people anymore. At his very worst, Edward had known better than to hang out with the kind of guys who would pull shit like that. And the new and improved Edward was even better. _He was getting better._

Which was why it was doubly irritating to Edward that he found Swan's lap dance so very stimulating. Edward despised himself for his involuntary reaction to her performance, and he despised himself for the fleeting attraction that he had felt for Swan the night that he took her sightseeing, before he knew who she was.

He was used to hating himself, so he might have left it go without another thought. Except that it had been three months. He'd gone without sex for three months. Surely, that was long enough. He could let himself have just one night. And just sex. Completely vanilla.

If nothing else, Edward thought that his reaction to Swan's lap dance was a sign that he was growing desperate. He'd denied himself long enough. He deserved a reward for good behavior.

Strolling into Breaking Dawn, Edward parked himself at a corner table and scanned the place. It was still empty for the most part, but his eyes kept returning to two brunettes up at the bar.

He had sent Tanya a text earlier that day, hinting that he might stop in, but as of yet she was nowhere in sight. He knew that he shouldn't have texted her. She was bad for him, bad for his recovery. But she was a sure bet.

In the meantime, the smaller of the two brunettes was enough to keep his attention occupied. She was wearing a dark blue dress, the fabric swirling around her legs as she shifted from one foot to the other. She was nervous.

Just as he decided to make his move, she turned and he caught a glimpse of her face. Mahogany framing ivory. Pink blush that he could see even from the other end of the bar.

 _Isabella Swan._

Edward stumbled off of his stool, shoving away from the table. He couldn't afford to be seen here, let alone by _her_. She would destroy him just for the fun of it.

But even as Edward prepared to make his escape—hoping to get away before Bella noticed him—he couldn't help being impressed by the perversity of it all. The overwhelming _strangeness_ of Bella appearing in Breaking Dawn, of all places.

It was certainly an odd coincidence, wasn't it, how she continued to appear like this, everywhere he went? It reminded him of when they were kids, and how she seemed to always be around.

 _She was just hanging out with Alice back then_ , he told himself, trying to stem the paranoia.

Yet, she could hardly claim to have that excuse now.

It was almost as if she was stalking him.

But some part of him tried to reason. _She seems so harmless_.

He watched her, her legs still shifting nervously. Her pale skin glowed in the dim light, luminous and unblemished _,_ as if she wasn't quite made for this world.

 _What am I doing?_ Edward sneered at his own idiotic musings.

To think that he'd almost approached her!

"A new plaything?" Edward heard Tanya purr behind him. He stiffened as he felt fingernails scratch down the back of his neck. "Do we get to keep her?"

"Leave her alone," he warned in a low tone, surprising himself, because when did he start caring about what happened to Bella?

"You always ruin my fun." Tanya complained.

He turned to glare at her.

Tanya continued, "It's not as if she'll last very long before someone snatches her up. We might as well be the ones who get to have her. See? It's already happening."

Edward's head whipped back towards the bar, as Tanya laughed and seized his arm. "At least we'll get to watch!" she whispered.

Edward held his breath, watching as Bella was outflanked. The other brunette having apparently deserted her, Bella stood surrounded, three suits taking turns eye-fucking her as she turned from one to the other. She still faced the bar, steadfastly holding her ground as if afraid to abandon her outpost even as the taller of the three men raised a hand and rested it on the small of her back. She stiffened. The man on her right caressed her elbow. She finished her drink.

"Will she, or won't she?" Tanya breathed in his ear. "I think our little doe is about to be snared."

"You're wrong."

"I think not. I know the type."

"You don't know _her._ "

"You are so certain. Care to make a wager?"

Edward hesitated. The Bella who'd challenged him to a lap dance the other night would have been utterly at her ease with the men currently seeking her favors. But the Bella who'd apologized for that lap dance wouldn't have wanted them buying her so much as a drink.

"You're on," Edward told Tanya. If nothing else, a thorough fuck might make Swan less of a freak.

Bella turned suddenly and Edward reared back, afraid he'd be seen.

But she was just saying something to her new suitors. One of them put his hand on her arm. She looked down at it.

Edward had never, would never, attempt to force a woman to do what she didn't want to do. But Breaking Dawn catered to a clientele who liked to blur the lines.

 _So what?_ Bella was an adult. Edward told himself that she was fully capable of making her own decisions. She ought to know what she was getting into coming to a place like that.

Besides, she could always call for help if she needed it.

 _Just like that night in Port Angeles_.

And with that thought, Edward was across the room and was pulling Bella out of the bar before he had registered that he'd even moved.

A minute later, he found himself on the street outside Breaking Dawn, hand in hand with Bella, the two of them looking very much like a perfectly normal couple out on a date.

It was 9:30 at night, so the streetlights were on. A family with three children was coming out of one of the restaurants. An elderly woman was locking up a high end interior design shop. A boisterous bunch of thirty-somethings were charging towards a theater. People were sitting in the coffeehouse on the corner talking and reading; you could see them through the window. The bar that Edward and Bella had just exited didn't have windows.

It might have been any street in any city.

 _A make-believe street in a make-believe city_ , Bella thought, _all artifice and deceit, store fronts of sugar and hard candy roofs_. Subterfuge being the only way to explain the disconnect between objective and subjective perception—the cold hypocrisy of Bella maintaining a placid facade while inside she was shuddering and shaking. She was staring at the ground, looking for evidence of the earthquake that was tearing through her, but the traitor sidewalk went on holding its shape, its smooth concrete face free of fissures and cracks.

Bella wondered if Edward felt it too.

"Masen?"

He spun around and stared at her, eyes wild. Oh, he felt it alright, she realized. Hyperventilating, he was gripping her hand so hard that it hurt.

Looking down at where their hands were joined, he spun again, dragging her behind him as he crossed the street. She tripped, Masen's iron grip on her hand keeping her upright as he led the way into the coffeehouse.

He ordered a solo espresso, and had Bella not known him better—known him so well even after all these years—she might not have noticed how those velvet tones masked a barely suppressed rage.

Edward glanced at her expectantly, and she ordered a chai, letting him pay for both drinks and being rewarded for her efforts when he released her hand.

But lest she bolt, he stood between her and the exit as they waited for their drinks.

Then he led her to a table in the back. And as she took her seat, she thought to herself that, were she not herself, were she someone else in another coffeehouse in another city, she wouldn't have hesitated to sit with him and drink a chai. Because why shouldn't two old acquaintances be able to engage in conversation?

Two _enemies_ , really, but holding onto old resentment was childish of her, wasn't it?

After all, he had something she wanted.

So, because it wasn't something she would do, because she wasn't herself anymore—had ceased being true to herself ever since she'd accepted her fairy godmother's proposal—Bella sat with Edward and took a sip of her chai.

"What were you doing there?" Edward demanded right out of the gate. "That bar caters to a certain _clientele_. You don't exactly fit the profile."

What _had_ she been doing there?

Bella's activities that evening lay far outside the norm, at least for her.

Nevertheless, she found Edward's question tedious. For all he knew, she went to places like Breaking Dawn all of the time. Why couldn't she be like everyone else just for once?

"I would have thought that was obvious," she deflected.

He was none too pleased. "Don't you think it's strange that we just happened to patronize the same establishment on the same night?" His tone was accusatory.

"I didn't follow you there," she defended herself. And it was true. She'd arrived first. Well before Tanya had told her to show up.

"You went there on your own?" his tone was disbelieving. "You looked like a deer trapped in the headlights." He smiled, obviously relishing the memory.

Bella glowered. _How fortunate for him that I could provide his entertainment for the evening._

"I went there with a friend," Bella said.

"I saw her," Edward replied, remembering the other brunette. "That doesn't explain what _you_ were doing there."

"I was keeping her company."

"You abandoned her quickly enough."

" _You_ dragged me out of there." A worried expression flashed over Bella's face. "Besides, I'm sure she's fine."

"We can go back and check on her if you want," Edward offered in a taunting tone, though he had every intention of barring a return.

"I'll text her," Bella demurred, pulling out her phone and typing on it.

"I'm surprised at you, having friends like that." Edward watched Bella fiddling with her phone. "You looked completely out of place. You obviously didn't belong."

"The men I was with didn't seem to think so." Bella dropped her phone back in her purse.

"They must not know you like I do."

"You don't know me at all."

"I suppose not—you _are_ giving lap dances now. Maybe you're more like your mother than I realized."

Bella started to stand.

"Don't go." Edward raised a hand to stop her.

"Stop being an asshole."

"You bring it out in me."

"Still blaming your dysfunctions on others?"

Edward shrugged. "I'll concede my overarching personality flaws if you'll stop evading the question."

He was mocking her. Nevertheless, Bella had a very good reason for wanting to stick around. She didn't want to give up so soon. So she sat back down. "What question?"

"So you were there tonight looking for a guy?"

"I wasn't looking for anything." That was a lie. She'd gone looking for Edward. Her fairy godmother had told her that he might show.

Edward cocked an eyebrow. "I can see how you'd be curious about...alternative lifestyles. Considering who your mother is."

"She has _nothing_ to do with this," Bella hissed.

"You must have gotten quite an eyeful, when you were growing up." Edward was being cruel and he knew it. But he was desperate to try and regain the upper hand. Ever since he'd seen her with those men—

Bella huffed. "Why yes, Masen. My mother hosted brunch every Sunday with her co-workers. I miss it so much that I've recently started a Garden Society for Seattle's most notorious hookers. You can join if you want, but you'll have to put out."

"I just meant that growing up in that kind of environment could have more than a little something to do with your...condition."

"My condition?"

"You're clearly frigid." It was just so easy for Edward to fall back into the old rhythm of taunting Bella, as though they were teenagers again. But his words weren't only in jest. He wanted to know just how much of a scar that night in Port Angeles had left.

"I'm not _frigid_."

"Right." Edward chuckled.

"I'm not."

Edward considered letting it go. It was none of his business, after all.

And even if it turned out that Bella _was_ somehow fucked up, what was he going to do about it?

 _Fix it._

How?

That question was too complicated, so Edward set it aside for the time being.

But then a wicked impulse made him lean towards across the table. "Not that there isn't hope for you. There _was_ that lap dance the other night."

"Screw you."

Edward leaned back. "It's alright to admit that you're attracted to me. Less than one percent of the population is genuinely asexual." Trying to take Bella by surprise, he changed the topic. "Do you see your mother anymore?"

"Why? You want to know if her rates have gone up?" _Fuck you_ , Bella thought.

Edward's nostrils flared in anger. "You could at least show a little gratitude to the person who saved you tonight."

"Saved?" Bella laughed. "Who did you save? I was just fine. If I needed someone's help, I would have yelled."

"Like you did in Port Angeles?"

The smile left Bella's lips. There could be no joking about this for her. "We don't talk about that, you and me. Never," Bella warned him.

"Why not? Isn't that why you've come back?"

"Come back?" Bella shook her head in amazement.

"To dredge up the past?"

Bella had to stop this _now_. "What's done is done." Translation: _Back the fuck off_.

He looked at her as if he didn't quite believe her. "Whatever. But I want you to know that I'm not the same person anymore."

Bella couldn't believe her ears. Next Edward was going to be telling her that he'd found Jesus.

" _First off_ , you don't know dick about me," Bella whispered hoarsely. "You don't know a motherfucking thing. So don't you dare ask me about my mother or my sexual proclivities. _Second_ , I don't give a shit about your growth. I don't care if you've got a goddamned spruce tree coming out of your ass. So you can take a flying fuck with your personal growth."

Edward was far from convinced. "I see you still think you have a right to go around judging people."

"I don't judge anyone."

"Ha! What the fuck were you doing in that bar tonight anyhow? They don't exactly cater to vanilla sexual appetites."

"What do you know about my sexual appetites?" she asked.

"Vanilla, through and through." He waited for her to confirm it. He _hoped_ she would confirm it. He didn't want to hear that she was as fucked up as him. "In fact, you look like a virgin."

"As if you would recognize one," Bella scoffed.

"I'm not buying your act," he half-lied.

"What act?"

"The one where you're not the same good girl you've always been."

"Well we can't all be deviants like you."

"Just because I go to a place like that doesn't make me a deviant," Edward argued half-heartedly.

"I never said it did," Bella retorted.

"You just did."

" _You_ may be a deviant. But that has nothing to do with—that place."

"It's not just the sex," Edward started to explain, for some reason feeling as if it was important that she understand this about him.

"Are you kidding me right now?" Bella asked.

This conversation was completely out of control. But Bella felt like she had only herself to blame for getting into this predicament with him. She'd reinserted herself into the Cullen's lives. She'd gone to Breaking Dawn that night looking for Edward.

Edward continued. "It's power that matters, not sex. I thought feminists were allowed to say that they didn't have to be in control anymore. Or haven't you read _Fifty Shades_?"

"Is that what that book is about?" Bella asked sarcastically.

"Everyone has urges."

"Sure they do," Bella conceded.

"Even me."

"Huh. Like what?" Not that Bella wanted him to answer. But she didn't think that he'd have the balls to continue.

She was wrong.

He raised an eyebrow. "To dominate." He was, of course, just trying to see how far he could push her. It was equal parts a reversion to his old adversarial relationship with Bella and a desire to put himself down before she could do it for him. If he was exaggerating about the direction of his tastes, well better that he put himself down than Bella could. She couldn't hurt him more than he'd already hurt himself.

"Oh my God." Bella quickly looked around, and was grateful that no one appeared to be eavesdropping on their conversation.

"It's really the submissive who has the power though," Edward explained in a patronizing tone.

Bella blinked at him.

"The safe word's key," he concluded with a flourish, as if he'd just explained base 10 to CroMagnon Man.

"Bullshit," Bella replied in an even tone. She was going to call this fucker out.

"What part?"

"All of it. The motherfucker with power's the motherfucker with power. The rest of that's just fairytales."

"How do you know, if you've never tried?" He was still guessing—still hoping—about her vanilla tastes. Edward didn't want to believe that of Bella—the hypocrisy of this wish on his part doing nothing to stall him. He didn't want to believe that Bella was as broken as he was.

And he _was_ broken. Edward liked kinky sex. He wouldn't have been going to Breaking Dawn if that wasn't the case. But it wasn't the kinkiness in and of itself that was the problem. An attraction to increasingly _elaborate_ sexual practices was merely a symptom of his condition. The real problem was the frequency in which he indulged, and the degree to which it had begun to disrupt his life.

He was posing right now, in exaggerating his interest in fetish, and he knew it. But he was trying to draw Bella out.

"I've never stuck my head in an oven either but I'm pretty sure of the results," Bella replied, thinking very seriously about throwing the wooden stirrer that had come with her drink at him.

Edward took her response as a confirmation of his suspicions. She _wasn't_ into kink. And until proven otherwise, he was going to assume that she was still a virgin, which meant that, yes, she was just possibly still fucked up over what happened in Port Angeles. Not fucked up in the same way that he was, and not for the same reasons, but fucked up nonetheless.

But he set that information to the side for the time being. "An oven? I wouldn't be surprised to hear that you have suicidal tendencies, seeing how you've decided to take up with the Cullens again."

She laughed. "The _Cullens_? You're an upper middleclass family, not the fucking mob."

"We're no good for you though. Anyone with half a brain could see that. Are you so desperate for companionship that you would go back to being Alice's pet?"

"For all that you know, it's the other way around and I'm using your sister this time."

Edward snorted. "I think that's highly unlikely."

"I guess we'll just have to find out." Bella glanced over her shoulder. "Not tonight though. They're closing." She stood up.

Edward rose with her. "I'll walk you to your car," he announced.

 _Always the gentleman_ , Bella thought viciously.

"You do that," she replied, getting to the exit before him and letting the door close in his face.

Edward took a second to control his temper. By the time that he joined Bella on the street, he found her nonchalantly leaning up against a bus stop a few feet from the coffee shop. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Awaiting a carriage, milord," Bella said, feigning a crisp English accent.

"You're taking the bus?"

"That's generally why a person waits at one of these signs."

"It's after eleven o'clock."

"I'm sorry." She tried to sound contrite. "Is it past your bedtime?"

Edward shook his head. "You're not taking a bus at eleven o'clock at night."

"Ok," she said, not moving.

"Ok?'

"Ok."

He looked confused. "You're still standing there."

"I'm not going to fight with you. You don't want me to take the bus, so I promise I won't. Now run along so that the pay-as-you-go motorized traveling machine can convey me to someplace that's not here."

"You said that you wouldn't take a bus."

"Did I?"

"Are you or aren't you taking the bus?" Edward demanded.

Bella hitched a shoulder, assuming an air of confidence she didn't really feel, especially then, standing on a dark street at eleven o'clock at night. Her work and school schedule often meant taking the bus or, even worse, walking home this late at night—but she never liked it. Not at all.

Edward's frustration continued to mount. "Lying's a sin you know."

"I never lie, except when it's to my advantage."

He crossed his arms and turned to face the street.

"Taking the bus too?" she inquired politely.

"I'll wait until it gets here at least."

"How bourgeousie!" she exclaimed, a small part of her relieved that she wouldn't have to wait alone, because it wasn't the best part of town, but an even larger part of her hating herself for feeling relieved.

 _It's not as if he was much help that night in Port Angeles,_ she thought.

Not looking at her, Edward began in a detached tone. "I can tell that this is part of your strategy, you know—distancing yourself from people. If you just let someone in, you wouldn't be so frigid."

Bella assumed a naïve air. "Gee willakers Jimmy, is it really that easy? I've just got to let someone in and then I get to be a real girl too? Well, let me run out and find someone to let in right now!"

Edward looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "It wouldn't kill you to try. Just pick someone."

"Applying for the job?" Bella asked. She wanted to protest the assumption that she was alone, but how could she? She was well aware that running around after the Cullens like this made her look desperate.

Edward snorted. "Not fucking likely."

"Then shut the fuck up about what I should and shouldn't do."

He spun around to face her. "I think you're afraid."

Bella stepped back involuntarily, and then winced at her show of weakness. "Afraid of strange men in the street?" She tried to laugh it off. "I can't imagine why."

"Afraid to lose control. To hand control over to someone else."

"And this coming from someone who admits to taking pleasure in _domination_."

Edward cocked an eyebrow. "There must be pleasure in submission, or I'd never find anyone willing to let me take over." He paused. "I'd like to see you out of control." He only said it to piss her off, because he knew it would piss her off, and that was what he and Bella did—they pissed each other off.

Bella took a deep breath, trying to rein in her anger. "You don't want to see me _out of control_ , Masen."

He had the audacity to smirk. "Oh no? Why not?"

She wanted to slap him. Where was that wooden stirrer from her drink? Why hadn't she thrown it at him? "What on earth could you possibly have to gain from it?"

He gestured strangely. "It's not what _I_ would gain."

Meaning it was what _she_ would gain. Like it would be a motherfucking _gift_ to her.

All of a sudden, Bella decided that she wasn't standing close enough to him. She took two full steps forward so that she was only an inch from his face. "Listen Masen, and listen good. I know your game. And you're not getting anywhere with me. You want to know wild? You want to know crazy? She's a monster. You ever hear of that play about the wine god driving all of those women crazy? One of the women rips the head off her own son without realizing what she's done. That's what being out of control looks like. It isn't a game."

Edward actually looked shocked. "Who's the one telling fairytales now?"

She stepped back again. "It's not a fairytale if it's true." Bella could feel it coursing through her veins too, a wild rage just waiting to be unleashed.

"That isn't what happens when a woman loses control for me. Why would I want to see that? Why would I suggest that for you?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Who knows the machinations a pretty boy will use on a beast? Throw her off balance with lies then show her a mirror." She shook her head.

"I'm confused. Are you a Bacchae—see I've read the play—or a medusa?"

Bella seemed to suddenly sober. "Neither. They don't exist."

Edward decided that Bella was out of her goddamn mind. _Fine_. She wanted to stand on a street corner and get murdered by a random serial killer? Let it be on her head.

He turned to leave.

And it started to rain. Of course.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky all day. There wasn't even a light mist to warn pedestrians of the impending shower. But it was full out raining now.

Edward glanced back at Bella and saw that she was already hiding under the awning of the coffeehouse.

"Wait there and I'll get my car," he ordered, not bothering to wait for her to answer.

He ran all four blocks, and was thoroughly soaked by the time he unlocked the door of his car and climbed in. He turned the heater on full and pulled out of the garage to drive back.

Only to spy Bella crossing the street in front of him, clearly having disregarded his request that she wait for him.

 _Goddammit._

He pulled up alongside of her. "Get in," he ordered.

"Fuck off." She kept walking, her umbrella little to shield her from the rain, which was coming down in sheets.

"Get in the goddamn car!" Edward growled, following slowly alongside of her.

"No!"

Edward smashed down on the brakes and put the car in park, and sprinted around the car to head her off. "Stop being childish," he told her.

"Don't fucking touch me!" she warned.

"Are we just going to stand here in the rain like this?"

"I've got an umbrella," Bella pointed out three seconds before a gust turned said umbrella inside out.

She pushed her sopping hair off her face. "I have infinite stores of patience," she said, as if trying to encourage herself.

 _Fine,_ Edward decided.

He got back in his car, and shifted into drive. She started walking again, tugging at the umbrella to turn it right side out.

Edward started following her again, and he could tell the exact second when she realized that he wasn't taking off—her head started to tilt in his direction, only for her to catch herself.

He easily kept pace with her in his Volvo.

"Why didn't you wait for the bus?" he snarled through the open passenger window.

"The last one already picked up at 10:30," she tossed back.

Her tone was so nonchalant. _Almost as if she'd known all along that she'd missed the last bus._ Edward had to ask. "Did you know that the whole time?"

"I thought you would get bored and go away," she defended herself.

"Then what? You were going to walk home?"

"I wasn't going to waste money on a cab."

"Why didn't you wait for me to come back with the car?"

Bella resolutely continued her march through the downpour. "I didn't want to have to see you anymore. I _don't_ want to see you anymore."

"Why not?"

"You're an asshole."

He gritted his teeth. "You're protesting a little too strongly, don't you think?"

"Masen please," she huffed. "I don't want you. You're too easy, and nothing worth having is easy."

He rolled to a stop at a red light and Bella continued right on through the intersection, not bothering to spare him a glance. She was almost a block away when the light changed.

"Wanting something doesn't make you a whore," he yelled as soon as he'd caught up with her again.

"Pretending to feel something that you don't does."

"I think you say things merely to be witty," he argued. "You don't mean them."

"That must be very reassuring for you," Bella replied.

"I know you can't possibly be this indifferent. You wouldn't have inserted yourself back into my sister's life if that were the case."

Edward waited for her comeback only to lose sight of her as she darted down some steps. By the time that Edward parked his car and joined her, she had taken her keys out and was fumbling with the lock of an apartment.

Glancing around, Edward noticed for the first time the rundown look of the neighborhood. Bars on the windows and graffiti on the lower stories. A dumpster sat in an alley by the side street, refuse piled high on the ground around it. Just a block down, a suspicious looking collection of youths were huddling under an awning.

"You live here?" he asked.

"No, I'm breaking and entering," Bella snapped, annoyed that the door was giving her so much trouble.

He was about to ask if she needed some help, when she finally got it open.

"You going to invite me in?" he asked.

She slammed the door in his face and quickly locked it.

The mockery in Edward's voice was still ringing in her ears.

Bella imagined that she could hear him laughing through the door. The way that he'd always laughed at her.

Grateful to see that her roommate was out, Bella went to the tiny window—the tiny barred window that rose up just above the surface of the sidewalk—and watched Edward climb back in his car and drive away.

Closing her eyes, she leaned her forehead against the window frame, trying to calm her nerves.

Not for the first time since accepting Tanya's offer, Bella asked herself what the fuck she was doing.

 _You're killing yourself_ , she thought. _Working your fingers to the fucking bone. And for what?_

For a career. For a future.

She wasn't like the Cullens. She had to scrape and pinch. School meant money and she didn't have it.

Tanya's offer meant getting her father the treatment he needed.

And if the treatment worked, then Bella could quit her extra jobs and concentrate on school.

But first, Masen had to take the bait. And if his obvious disgust for her was any indication, that wasn't fucking likely.

In any case, Bella wasn't sure that she could go through with it. If Edward hadn't come up to her that night in the bar—

Which was just another fucking reason to give up on this whole plan.

Dragging herself to the bathroom, Bella began peeling off her wet clothes.

Bella remembered the things Edward used to say to her. How he used to complain because she spent so much time at the Cullens.

"Why are you always here?" Edward asked one morning upon finding her in the kitchen. "Don't you have a home to go to?"

Bella had a home, alright. But it was empty.

"At least they want me here," Bella snapped. "They don't have a choice with you."

Edward just laughed. "They feel sorry for you. That's all."

His words stung, especially because Bella had a sneaking suspicion that he was right. She could sometimes see the pity in Esme's eyes.

At a loss for a good comeback, Bella fumbled for words. "I'm Alice's best friend."

"Forks doesn't really have a lot of options, does it? And maybe she'd have friends, if she wasn't always dragging you around."

"Alice can do whatever she wants."

"She's always got you hanging onto her though. And you're so weird. Looking at her with those puppy dog eyes. What is she supposed to do?"

Bella shook her head. She didn't have puppy dog eyes, did she? She wasn't holding Alice back, was she?

"I mean really, _what_ is your deal?" Edward asked, quirking an eyebrow at her.

She didn't have a deal. She was just herself. She didn't see why people couldn't just leave her alone.

"Everyone in Forks told me to stay away from you," Edward continued. "At first, I thought it was just because your dad was the Chief and everyone thought you were a narc, but look at you."

Bella knew that she wasn't popular. She knew that people didn't like her. But she didn't realize that they were actively putting out warnings about her.

She wasn't popular in Phoenix, either. She had done her best to avoid attention there. It was bad enough when that rumor got started in the first grade about her mom being some kind of an alcoholic.

When people asked, Bella would say that her mother was a stay-at-home billing specialist. That was what her mom had told her to say.

Otherwise, Bella kept her mouth shut.

But in Forks Bella didn't have to worry that people would find out about her mom. And yet, for some reason, they still hated her.

"I don't know what their problem is," Bella said lamely.

"I think it's you," Edward said. "You're their problem."

To an outside observer, it would've been all too obvious that Edward was projecting his own feelings of insecurity onto Bella. Oh, it was true that people had warned him to stay away from her. But he couldn't help suspecting that their overtures of friendship were part of a gag. He thought they were setting him up.

And yeah, it bothered him how Bella was always over at his house. As it was, he was having trouble just coping with this new "family" of his. Four strangers. Dealing with this girl, on top of all of that, just seemed like too much.

But Bella didn't know any of that. She was just a teenage girl.

She remembered rounding on Edward one day in the cafeteria. He had been standing in the lunch line behind her, joking and roughhousing with his friends, laughing about something and smirking in her direction.

Probably laughing at her.

She sneered at him. "You're such a loser."

" _I_ 'm the loser?" he smiled—smiled to hide the doubt that crept in at her words. "I don't think so."

"You think you're so special, you and your little jock friends."

"Guess there's not enough room at the _loser_ table to eat with you."

"With your _sister_. But I guess you're too good to eat with her."

Edward grimaced, because who was this girl to call him out for something like that? To imply that he was some kind of an asshole for ignoring his sister?

Especially when Alice wasn't even really his flesh-and-blood.

He glared at her. "At least I'm not a freak, like you." And then, because he just wanted to hurt her, because he was a teenager and, as such, lacked those filters that stop a decent human being from saying the dumbest shit, he jerked his head at her. "Why _are_ you always hanging around Alice, anyhow? You in love with her or something?"

Bella's jaw dropped at his last question.

The insinuation stung, not because there would've been wrong _had_ Bella been a lesbian, but because Edward clearly meant it as an insult. Clearly meant to imply that Bella's friendship was somehow corrupt, selfish.

And she couldn't deny it either. Not without implying that she thought there was something wrong with being a lesbian.

Worst still, a tiny part of her felt like his insult meant that she was somehow defective.

Which implied that she secretly thought there was in fact something wrong with being a lesbian.

Which would mean that she was a bigot.

And she hated herself for that second of self-doubt, for that realization of her own latent bigotry.

Which was just another reason to hate Edward Masen— _not_ Cullen.

He was a fucking asshole.

"At least my mom's not a crack addict," she hissed. It was just a stab in the dark—she was just saying the first thing that came to her mind. Back in Phoenix, insults like that were thrown around like cigarettes in a prison yard.

Hence, Bella's surprise when Edward's eyes widened in shock—shock and horror.

She recognized that look. Bella knew it all too well, from all of the times that someone had come too close to guessing the truth about _her_ mother, and Bella had been forced to cover.

"You don't know anything about me," Edward snapped, dismissing his regret over the lesbian crack—he shouldn't have said it, he shouldn't have used something like that as a weapon.

But it was too late. Bella had realized that he had a weakness. And she wasn't going to forget it.

Ten years later, standing naked in front of her mirror, Bella stared at herself.

And the creature in the mirror scowled back at her. Dull white skin and hair like ropes over limbs that hung akimbo, ungraceful. Breasts too small to compensate for overlarge thighs. A form that could only be attractive to fellows like Rubens. Protruding ribs contrasting oddly against evidence of excess flesh. And tired, overlarge eyes threatening to pull unwary persons into their dark, dangerous depths, with purple bruises underneath.

At best, Bella figured, she looked like a test model. Something God had made before he'd figured out exactly what it was he wanted.

Bella squinted at the mirror and the image before her blurred.

She noticed a lock of hair wrapped around her arm. She tried to brush it aside, but it clung, gripping like a snake, and she imagined it growing, squirming and twisting until it had wrapped itself around the rest of her body. She imagined a serpent's head hovering over her left breast, as if she was one of the crazed devotees of the wine god, _'with writhing snakes that licked their cheeks.'_

Bella felt strange. _Other_. Her humanity all done up in an ugly bow.

And just like that, Bella made up her mind.

She was done with the plan. Tanya could keep her money. Bella couldn't go through with it.

 **AN:**

 **The play about the wine god is Euripides'** _ **Bacchae.**_

 **'** _ **I have seen the holy Maenads [bacchae, devotees of the wine god Dionysius or Bacchus], the women who ran barefoot and crazy from the city…they let their hair fall loose, down over their shoulders, and…fastened their skins of fawn with writhing snakes that licked their cheeks.' –**_ **Euripides'** _ **Bacchae**_ **, trans. David Grene and Richmond Latimore**

 **Breaking Dawn in this story is not a sex club. But it does attract a clientele interested in kink.**

 **This chapter should have allayed fears that Edward was a rapist (or an attempted rapist). Reminder, this story only involves** _ **attempted**_ **rape.**

 **I went to high school with people this vicious. And I think that these people have probably grown up, gotten married, and produced children just as vicious. Some of them may have learned to regret their pasts, but I think they're probably in the minority. So while I appreciate that some readers may think that this Edward and Bella are irredeemable right now, I consider it a challenge to make them redeem themselves.**

 **Some readers have raised concerns that this story is going down some well-trod fanfiction paths. As the Disclaimers have indicated, I am indeed drawing inspiration from the wider universe of fanfiction, particularly** _ **The**_ _ **University of Edward Masen, Master of the Universe**_ **, and** _ **Deconstructing Dracula**_ **, old fanfics that were popular when I originally came up with this plot, and all of which I'm going to diverge from, in part because they pissed me off.**

 **How is my story different?**

 **Note: Some hints as to what's coming are dropped below, but my assumption is that you're only reading below because you've already decided that this story is going to be so clichéd that it's not worth your time, so you won't care if I drop these hints.**

Edward is a recovering sex addict. One of the symptoms of this illness is an attraction to increasingly kinky forms of sex. I haven't read any fanfics that talk about Edward being a sex addict per se.

I didn't read _50 Shades_ or see the movie. However, I _did_ read _Master of the Universe_. If I recall correctly, Edward's interest in BDSM in the latter was an expression of his need for control in response to abuse. This is different from sexual addiction, where the goal isn't necessarily control. In fact, the addict is anything but in control.

My Edward did suffer child abuse, like (if I recall correctly) the Edward in _Master of the Universe_. Members of the BDSM community have been quite vocal about the point that BDSM isn't supposed to function as abuse or an artifact of abuse, and they've criticized _50 Shades_ on these grounds. Nevertheless, I think that _Master of the Universe_ raised a question that deserves an answer with regard to the ways in which we can repeat the cycle of (physical or mental) abuse, with consent masking the degree to which that's a problem. I have no idea how _50 Shades_ eventually resolved the issue (or if it ever did); I stopped reading _Master of the Universe_ when it was pulled, and the "resolution" that had been reached by the time it was pulled didn't really push the question as far as I thought it should be pushed. If we take sex as a metaphor, then we get to the root of the issue I'm really concerned with here: The ways in which (physical or mental) trauma can feed into a victim's desire to seek out what might look like mentally or physically abusive relationships, as either the "perpetrator" or the "victim." I first came across the debate over this issue when a family member of mine became the victim of sexual violence. While I think that a perfectly healthy person can seek out what _looks_ like sexual violence and that that is not necessarily a sign of an unhealthy sexual appetite, I have no doubt 1) that being a non-consenting victim of violence (sexual or not) can (but doesn't necessarily) contribute to a person seeking out violence again (as either the victim or perpetrator) as a way of dealing with the trauma, and 2) that this isn't always healthy. _Deviant_ by planetblue, _Release_ by writingbabe, and _Edgeplay_ by dirtybrat do excellent jobs of exploring this issue. I think that my approach to the issue is sufficiently different to justify my story's existence.

I've warned that this story includes child abuse and attempted rape. In discussion with a reader, I've decided to post a censored version of the more graphic scenes to another website so that if you don't want to read those scenes, but you want to continue reading the story, you can.

Again though, Edward's issue is sexual addiction, not BDSM. This story isn't going to turn into _Master of the Universe_ or any of the other BDSM fanfics. I did do some research on BDSM (for school) but the Edward in my story isn't based on the people I learned about during the course of my research. In fact, you may have noticed that I mocked this particular fanfic cliché in a previous chapter. There isn't going to be a grand "he's gone too far" scene. My Edward has never had non-consensual sex and he never well. And he isn't always going to be in control.

There will be sex, but it will be censored on Fanfiction (uncensored version to appear on Fictionpad) because I understand that some people don't want to read all of that (I often skip it when reading). I included these scenes because it was a stretch for me to write (I wanted to grow as a writer) and because this story is going to explore the philosophical implications of the relationship between love/sex to a much greater extent than any fanfic I've ever read, so leaving out the physical sex seemed unfair (especially given the room that's going to be given to intellectual debate). I'm trying to give equal space to physical sex and intellectual debate. ( **Update** : Upon reader request, almost all of the sex has been removed from the Fanfiction version.)

Yes, Bella is a virgin, as I've already hinted. I could have made them both younger—thereby making her virginity less of an issue—but I think that the fact that they're so set in their ways makes the story all the more compelling. Moreover, Bella's virginity is integral to her plans for Edward and to their debate about the relationship between love and sex. This in and of itself—the fact that her virginity is integral to the plot—is part of what's different about this story. The virginity of most virgin Bellas is rarely integral to the story.

Bella's virginity is also inspired by another issue: I have a family member who was the victim of sexual assault as a child. In trying to support her, I did a great deal of research. In the process, I came across a plethora of real life stories about women who were told that their aversion to sex was an artifact of the sexual trauma they had suffered. I came across other stories about real life women who identified as lesbians, and were told that their lesbianism was a "side effect" of their assaults, as if their histories somehow made their gender identities less valid, as if they would be "straight again" if they could "just get over their trauma." Well, fuck that shit. While I wasn't physically abused as a child, I was subjected to sexualizing language akin to what Bella went through in _Corrupting Influence._ This was _extremely_ difficult to process for me as an American, living in American society. Here, if you're not sexually active and open about your sexuality, you are deemed somehow defective; you're deemed a victim, as if your choices are not, in fact, choices. Instead, they're seen as a sign of passivity. Bella is a virgin in this story because I want to undermine the notion that virginity lacks agency.

In some ways, I do wish that I'd written this story without any reference to childhood trauma. I hate the idea that I've perhaps reinforced that narrative of sexual "repression" or so-called "deviance" as an artifact of mental illness. I might have created characters with far less psychological baggage. (I really did think about doing this.) That approach has the advantage of being far less exploitative; there wouldn't be any horrific flashbacks to child abuse. Plus, the "experiment" that I would be conducting with my psychologically well-adjusted subjects would, in one sense, be far more objective. Free from the constraints of fucked-up childhoods, their actions wouldn't be driven by any psychological scars (one assumes). Therefore, the findings of the "experiment" would be less subject to bias.

But wouldn't the tinkering that these "normal" characters conducted as part of this experiment (their exploration of "deviant" forms of sexuality) take on the appearance of slumming?

And isn't "slumming" a kind of elitism?

Wouldn't this Edward and Bella be the sort of shallow and vapid assholes that people are supposed to hate?

Oh, they'd have a moment of reckoning. A great awakening, where they'd finally "get it." Just like the end of all those white savior movies, where the audience says "Thank God the rich white boy/girl showed up to tell all us dumb fucks how life in the slums really feels."

Yeah, I don't give a fuck about "normal" Bella and "normal" Edward. Not. One. Fuck.

And I don't think that I could write that story even if I tried. I don't know those people. I would _hate_ those people.

Last but not least, the "healthy" version of the story wouldn't help me undermine efforts to rob trauma victims of agency. I want to portray trauma victims who are allowed the agency of choice—who aren't shoved into a box of deviance-seeking victimhood or missionary position re-purification.

( **Update** : As I mark this story Complete, I can't help but feel that Bella's virginity didn't just offend people because it was a cliché. They were offended because they were offended by virginity itself, and then because I made it a functioning part of the plot, thereby undermining their first two complaints, something that, ironically, seems to have pissed them off even more. Apparently, we're supposed to pretend that we aren't still plagued by Victorian pathos in America. So many _Twilight_ fanfictions are full of simpering spinster virgin Bellas desperate to find an Edward who'll understand them and simpering Edwards who insist that they love Bella even though she's a virgin. And yet I'm supposed to pretend that isn't a thing. _What bullshit_. I wanted to write an Edward who was interested in a virgin Bella because this interest is both deviant and a central feature of American sexual pathos. Americans treat virginity as a disease, something to be gotten rid of. And yet they're obsessed with it. But I actually ended up dialing the virginity theme in chapter 21 because I'd already offended so many people, and I was afraid of offending more. And yes, this plot point—the deviant Edward interested in a virgin Bella—was in part borrowed in part from _MotU_. But I had never bought that part of _MotU_. In fact, it had offended the hell out of me. I thought it was chauvinistic as shit—because if we're going to say that women have a right to choose to be tied down, shouldn't we expect them to be responsible enough to remember that there's a safe word? And yes I know that the Bella in _MotU_ was just a person, and that people make mistakes, but it annoyed me. I wanted to respond to that narrative. Unlike _MotU_ , my Bella knows damn well what she's doing every step of the way. And I have undercut the notion of deviance, too, because it smacks of arrogance and prejudice, whether it's the pressure we put on everyone to be sexually active—while at the same time condemning them for that activity—to the imposing egoism of certain Edwards, who seek to dominate with their supposed sophistication.)

 **Recs: Since I mentioned them in this AN and they are in fact quite well written:** _ **Deviant**_ **by planetblue,** _ **Release**_ **by writingbabe, and** _ **Edgeplay**_ **by dirtybrat.**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, including some fanfictions that will be mentioned when pertinent, this plot belongs to me.**

' _I would never exchange my virtue for gold, for my virtue endures, while riches change their owner every day.'_ \- Solon, quoted by Plutarch, trans. by Ian Scott-Kilvert

Chapter 5

"Edward won't be there," Alice promised.

Bella sighed, staring at the phone in her hands. She didn't want to be talking to  
Alice, but Bella had extremely bad luck with roommates. They had sex on her bed and sold her shit on eBay. They had parties late into the night three or four times a week and had friends who didn't know how to take 'no' for an answer. Her current roommate didn't do any of that, fortunately, but the woman smoked non-stop, so that the place always reeked, and Bella had woken up more than once to find her roommate just staring at her, watching her while she slept. Bella put up with it because she spent so much time working that she was hardly in the apartment. And recently, her roommate had been keeping the creep factor down. But when Bella had come out of the bathroom a few minutes ago, it was to find her roommate talking on _her_ phone.

"I answered it for you," her roommate had said, handing it over like it was perfectly normal to answer your roommate's phone without asking. "It was making a racket."

Bella knew that was a lie. She always— _always_ —left her phone on vibrate.

So here Bella was, trying to figure out a way to get out of another happy hour with Alice.

Bella wanted to cut the Cullens completely off. At first, she'd assumed that it would be easy—it wasn't as if they had tried very hard to stay in touch last time. But now Alice wasn't taking 'no' for an answer.

"I never understood the way the two of you would fight, but Edward won't be there. I promise," Alice said.

Bella briefly considered telling Alice to fuck off.

But she couldn't help feeling a pang of nostalgia as she remembered the friendship that the two of them had once shared.

And Alice appeared to be genuinely interested in renewing that friendship.

No mention had been made of the reasons behind their falling out, but Alice seemed truly happy to see Bella again. She'd been texting Bella off and on for several days now, asking when Bella would be free to meet up and complaining that they hadn't had a real opportunity to talk since Alice's return.

Bella wasn't interested in having any sort of "talk" with Alice. Bella was still angry at Alice for everything that had happened in high school.

But Edward was right about one thing: Bella _was_ lonely. She didn't have that many friends. Going to graduate school and working all of the time meant that her opportunities for getting out and about were fairly limited. She'd never been particularly gifted in the area of social exchange. She had trouble even getting along with her fellow graduate students.

Though Bella's initial reasons for renewing her friendship with Alice were moot—Bella had called off her plan—Bella figured that she could still try to be friends with Alice.

This time, of course, she'd be on her guard. Yet Bella wanted to try.

So Bella told Alice that she'd show up for happy hour.

And when the time rolled around, Bella walked into Newton's with her head held high, in a thrift shop dress and a pair of loafers, fairy goddess-approved clothing and make-up and hair all things of the past. Bella wasn't trying to be something she wasn't anymore.

Spying Rosalie in a corner, Bella headed for her table only to be jerked to a halt by a meaty paw on her shoulder.

"Be careful, B, you could hurt someone with that," Emmett said, stepping out of the way of her backpack as she turned. "What the hell's in there?"

"The most lethal weapon known to man," Bella replied. "Books."

He looked at her critically, as they made their way over to the table. "You know they make these things called kindles now."

Bella pulled off her backpack and dropped it on the ground. "I don't believe in the Cloud. Besides, everyone knows that librarians are sexy."

"You're funny, Bella," Rosalie laughed.

No one had ever told Bella that she was funny before. People had laughed at her— _Masen_ had laughed at her—but not because he thought that she was clever.

Rosalie began pouring Bella a glass of amber-colored liquid from a half-full pitcher.

"I suppose librarians _are_ sexy," Emmett mused reluctantly.

Rosalie huffed in mock irritation.

"Oh Rosalie relax," Bella sighed, taking a seat on a stool. "You're gorgeous. Everyone knows it. But me? When a person looks like me, the question isn't whether or not you're going to give head, it's how much."

"Is that so?" a velvet voice inquired behind her just as she sipped her beer.

Bella coughed, blinking furiously.

Emmett leaned towards her and whispered, "I texted him. Funny how he didn't want to come until I told him _you_ were coming."

 _It doesn't matter_ , Bella told herself _. The plan is off_.

She took a deep breath, and chanced a glance at Edward.

He had sat down, far too closely to her own stool, in her opinion. The bar wasn't really _that_ crowded. It seemed like he was intentionally trying to make her uncomfortable. And the perfect planes of his face mocked her with their symmetry. _Would it kill him for his nose to be just a little out of proportion?_ she wondered. He smirked at her. _Ha!_ she noted with glee, remembering how his smile was crooked.

She grinned despite herself, offering Edward a basket of chicken fingers sitting on the table.

"You don't want any?" he asked, spying the full basket.

"Chickens don't have fingers and I don't approve of misnomers," she said. "Besides, I had lady fingers for lunch."

Emmett snickered while Rosalie groaned.

"Lame Swan," Rosalie declared. "Very lame."

Nevertheless, Bella felt herself could do lame. One could even said that she had a flare for it.

Yet the conversation proceeded in fits and starts. Rosalie and Emmett did most of the work, Emmett telling vulgar jokes that were funny only insofar as he thought that they were and Rosalie admonishing him. Bella chipped in when she could and Edward maintained a more or less morose silence.

In his defense, he _tried_ , but the words stuck in his throat. He kept thinking of something to throw in, but before he could speak the conversation moved on.

This was always Edward's problem. He had never really figured out how to fit in, even with his own siblings. Of course, he was fourteen by the time he moved in with them, and by then, he'd long since become accustomed to relying on his own resources. Edward's survival had depended on being able to throw a punch and knowing who and who not to turn his back on (his own mother being included in the latter group). After moving to Forks, Edward made a half-hearted effort to get along with his stepsiblings and to make friends—or, at least—to find people that he could hang out with. But that was just to get his father and his stepmother off of his back. So Edward didn't even bother once he got to college. He had acquaintances. And he had the women he had sex with. But he didn't have _friends_.

That was one of the things that he was supposed to be working on. He'd never learned how to develop meaningful attachments, at least according to the literature that he'd been so avidly perusing as of late. If the experts were to be believed, Edward had never learned how to develop a real connection. Thus, he settled for, and came to crave, cheap substitutes.

In order to put all of that behind him, Edward needed to establish genuine, authentic connections, beginning with his family.

But Edward had no idea what he was doing.

"Do you want to play darts?" he asked Emmett out of the blue.

Emmett gave him a funny look. "You want to play? With me?"

"Sure, why not?"

Emmett scoffed. "You're not the kind of guy who plays games."

"I used to play football with you when we were kids," Edward reminded Emmett.

"Must've escaped my memory," Emmett shrugged.

Edward gritted his teeth. He was trying, wasn't he? Didn't he get any credit for that?

"If you don't want to play, we don't have to," Edward said.

"No, we can play." Emmett stood.

"Anyone else?" Edward asked, glancing around the table.

"Why don't you boys run along," Rosalie said. "I wanna talk shop with Bella here."

Not quite sure what that meant, Edward just nodded and head over to the dartboard with Emmett.

Aside from a few comments on the state of play, which was sadly lacking on Edward's part, the stepsiblings found that they had little to say to each other.

Back at the table, Rosalie was unsuccessfully grilling Bella about the nature of her relationship with Edward.

"You're not interested in him?" Rosalie asked.

"Why would you say that?"

"You gave him a lap dance."

"It was just a thing to do."

Rosalie arched an eyebrow.

By the time that the stepsiblings returned to the table, Rosalie had received a text: Alice was held up at work.

Bella held her tongue, but she wasn't buying Alice's excuse. And she was a little wary following Rosalie's interrogation. If even Rosalie, a perfect stranger, could tell that something was going on, then Bella didn't have much confidence in pulling the wool over the Cullens' eyes, did she?

For his part, Edward was relieved to hear that his stepsister wasn't going to be showing up. He was smart enough to know that Alice might very well be annoyed to see him there.

And strangely enough, Edward was feeling more comfortable with each passing minute. He was getting along with Emmett. (At least they weren't openly fighting.) And for whatever reason, Bella wasn't taking any jabs at him. If he and Bella could get along, that would be proof of Edward's progress. Even his family had to see it.

"Maybe I was wrong about you," Edward said the minute he had Bella to himself, Emmett and Rosalie having abandoned them to grab a round of shots (clearly an excuse on Emmett and Rosalie's part to escape whatever the hell was going on between Edward and Bella, the latter two casting glances at each other when they thought no one was watching). "You've blossomed."

Bella cringed. She should have known better than to stay behind with Edward when Emmett and Rosalie went up to the bar. But the night had been going so well—

She stood up and started looking for her wallet. "I haven't changed at all," she said. "I'm exactly the same."

"I don't think so."

Bella threw a twenty on the table. "How much did your suit cost?"

"What?" Edward glanced down at himself. He had dressed up—stupidly, foolishly, even though he _never_ wore suits to work—he had dressed up that day, knowing that he was going to be seeing Bella. It wasn't because he wanted to impress her—why would he want to do that?—it was just that, for some reason, the suit made him feel safer. Stronger. Like he could take anything that Bella might throw at him. Like, with the suit on, there was a layer of armor between her and the scars on his skin that she knew all too well.

"How much?" Bella repeated her question.

Edward shrugged. "Couple hundred."

"My dress cost four dollars," Bella said, as if that answered everything.

"So you bargain shop."

"Yeah, that's it." Bella sighed ruefully as she bent down to heave her backpack up onto her shoulder.

"You didn't used to care about things like that" Edward observed.

"I was naïve. And didn't you used to call me a Commie?"

"You were always spouting socialism," Edward laughed, trying to think of a way to make her stay. "Besides you hated me because I had money and good looks." He smirked, as if it was a joke. "How's that fair?"

"Masen, I had a lot of reasons to dislike you, reasons that had nothing to do with your financial status or appearance." Bella tightened the straps of her backpack. "But, so what? You hated me for the same reasons. No money and thrift shop couture."

"But you got off on it—on looking like some hippy," Edward argued. "Besides, you act like people can choose who they are. We don't have a choice. Everyone's corrupt. It's just easier for people with money."

"You're rich so you're evil, is that it?" Bella huffed.

Edward hitched a shoulder.

"Whatever. Give your family my best." Bella turned towards the exit.

Panicking, Edward decided that pissing her off would be the best way of convincing her to stick around. "Why're you leaving? Afraid of me?"

Bella stopped, pivoting to glance back at Edward. He was staring down at his drink, as if he was totally disinterested in her reaction, when he was anything but.

Edward _needed_ Bella to approve of him. His family could hardly continue to hold a grudge against him if they saw how he'd won her acceptance. Naturally, he kept going about it the wrong way. Pissing Bella off at every turn.

"I'm not afraid of anything," she said.

Edward laughed uneasily, afraid that she could see right through him, just like old times. "Except of being called a coward."

Slowly, Bella slid her backpack off of her shoulders and sat down, wondering who was winning—her for staying or him for making her stay. Unable to decide, she opted to ignore the elephant in the room. "What's taking Emmett and Rosalie so long?" she asked, glancing at the two of them on the other side of the bar.

"Long line at the bar?" Edward speculated, surprised that he'd succeeded in convincing Bella to stay. "But I've promised Emmett that there won't be any lap dances until he gets back. So you'll have to control yourself for now."

Ignoring the bait, Bella finished the rest of her beer.

And because Edward was an idiot, he leaned across the table and whispered "I promise not to bite." He meant it as a joke, but the words were barely out of his mouth, and he already knew that they were a mistake.

Lacing her fingers together, Bella studied Edward like he was a lab specimen. "So tell me," she started, in a detached tone, "was it becoming a doctor that ruined sex for you?"

A muscle twitched in Edward's jaw. "Sorry— _what?_ "

"That bar you go to," Bella explained, cocking her head to the side in mock confusion. "Why do you have to go to such…lengths…to experience satisfaction? Is it because you're a doctor? Do you only think of sex in physical terms? Like a doctor with a textbook. A vagina here, a mouth there. Not a whole person."

"It's sex, not vivisection."

"It sex, not a quilting bee _._ But for some reason you think it's boring. You've got to add some kink. What's that about? How'd that happen?"

Edward considered her for a minute, not replying. "I'll answer your question," he said at last, "if you answer one for me."

"You first."

Edward shook his head. "No. You first."

"Why should I?" Bella asked.

He smiled. "You want to set a good example for me, don't you?"

Bella glared at him. "What's the question?"

"What would it take to turn you on?"

Bella was glad that she'd already finished her beer, because here she was, choking on just air. "What?"

"You clearly heard me." Edward sat back, confident that he'd regained the upper hand, at least for now. Her question about his reasons for going to Breaking Dawn had rattled him.

"How is that any of your business?" Bella demanded.

"You seem comfortable asking me about my sex life. It's only fair I return the favor."

Determined not to let Edward see just how much he was riling her, Bella glowered at him. "I thought you said that I was frigid."

He feigned innocence. "I've begun to suspect it's just a show."

"Whatever," Bella rolled her eyes, because apparently she was fifteen again.

"You clearly don't mind _them_ ," Edward gestured to the gaggle of students filling the bar.

"What?" Bella blinked at Edward in surprise.

"They've been coming over here all night. All of those guys you used to TA. They've been hanging _all over you_."

It was true that a couple of Bella's old students had come up to her that night, just to say hi. It didn't mean anything. "They're like bunnies," Bella said. "And undergraduates. Not really worth paying attention to."

"So you need a challenge?"

"A challenge?" Bella was wary.

Edward nodded. "A guy's got to challenge you to get your attention."

"Challenged _intellectually_ , naturally," Bella replied, hating her prim tone, but unable to stop herself. "Though I suppose somatic stimuli is relevant." She sniffed. And wanted to smack herself in the forehead for being so stuck up.

"Somatic stimuli certainly isn't _ir_ relevant," Edward laughed. "You're not suffering any neuropathy impairing your sense of touch, are you?"

"If I am, I'm sure you face a much larger problem." Bella couldn't help continuing with the prim-and-proper act. It was like she'd lost all control of herself.

"Me?"

"You. Habituation. You've gotten bored with sex. So you keep pushing the limits with places like Breaking Dawn. But you can't keep upping the ante. It's just not feasible. The only option—the only thing that makes sense—is refusing to engage. Which is why I'm better off."

Edward pretended that she hadn't just given herself away. "You mean people who don't have sex are better off than those who do?" he asked.

Bella nodded.

Edward snorted. "You're discussing things you can't possibly understand." He wanted her to confirm his suspicions. Was she a virgin? Or was she just not into kink?

Bella burst out laughing. "You mean that I can't have an opinion about this because I'm not in your shoes? How does that make any sense? If anything, that just means that I'm more objective. I'm far more trustworthy on this subject than you."

Edward shook his head again. "Trying to explain sex to a virgin is like trying to explain sight to someone blind from birth."

"And subjectivity muddies your perception," Bella argued back. "You wouldn't be able to describe sight to me because you've always had it. You don't really appreciate it. Not the way a blind person would."

His suspicions about Bella's sexual history more or less confirmed, Edward nevertheless continued. "Except that, according to your argument, once a blind person sees for the first time his objectivity is lost. So refusal to indulge is an exercise in fruitless ignorance."

"Unless sight's overrated. How can a person who can see appreciate the…the fact of blindness? To you, blindness is a negative. Absence in and of itself can have _substance_."

"Now you're the one who doesn't make sense. You've clearly decided that you _want_ to _see,_ as you so inelegantly put it. Why else would you go to Breaking Dawn?"

"Research."

" _Research?_ "

Bella quirked a shoulder. "One of my professors thinks it will be good for me."

"Excuse me?" Edward was surprised at surge of—of annoyance?—of _anger_ he felt at the notion of a professor of Bella's stepping over the line like this. "What the fuck does he think he's doing?"

" _She_ is on my dissertation committee. We have to have someone from outside of the department. And she's from gender studies." Bella rolled her eyes. It was irritating that history students working on anything related to gender always had Dr. Volturri on their committee, like gender was the only thing that mattered and Dr. Volturri was the only one who knew anything about it.

"So?" Edward was somewhat mollified to learn that the professor in question was female. But he still didn't understand why this professor had sent Bella to Breaking Dawn.

"So, she keeps giving me shit. Angela—uh, you saw her, the friend you saw me at Breaking Dawn with—" Bella glanced at Edward and then away, unsure what to make of his expression. "Angela is doing her dissertation on sexual fetishes in the Victorian Age, and how they're still alive and well today." Bella groaned. "And you can just imagine, Dr. Volturi's practically salivating all over that topic. Meanwhile, she fucking hates what I'm doing." That was an understatement. Dr. Volturi had yet to approve Bella's dissertation proposal, saying that it was supposed to be a _research_ project, not "a Harlequin romance novel."

It was thanks to Dr. Volturi that Bella had met her fairy godmother, because if not for her professor's nagging, Bella never would have ventured through the doors of Breaking Dawn.

The night that Edward found Bella there, it was in fact her fourth time in the bar.

Bella dropped her hands into her lap. "Dr. Volturi hasn't come out and said it, but I can read between the lines. She wants me to be writing Angela's dissertation all over again. It's insulting. Like what I've come up with on my own just isn't good enough."

Edward felt a pang of something—an emotion that he couldn't quite identify. Because he didn't know what to do with that, he focused instead on his frustration over learning that his old haunt was now fodder for academics. He didn't like the idea of a bunch of armchair intellectuals sitting there, judging what they didn't understand. "And you're going to Breaking Dawn as what? A night at the zoo with all of the deviants?"

Bella was surprised to realize that she was embarrassed at having offended Edward. "I don't think they're deviants."

"Liar."

"Freud said that the only natural sexual impulse was no sexual impulse," Bella replied.

Edward didn't look convinced. "You don't think I'm a deviant?"

Bella didn't want to answer that question. "You're a special case. But other people?" She shrugged her shoulders. "Who am I to say?"

"I don't believe you."

"If I'm a true humanist then I have no choice but to accept a person's right to make decisions. Even decisions that I think violate their own humanity."

"Their _humanity_?" Edward's voice had an edge to it.

"Their freedom." Bella meant, of course, the way that so-called submissives appeared to cede their autonomy. It seemed like a contradiction in terms, but Bella figured that they had a right to decide something like that.

"What's humanitarian about denying your needs?"

Bella folded her hands carefully, retreating again into that prim-and-proper facade. "Jean Baudrillard argued that desire, by definition, has no end. Can have no end. Satiation, absolute satisfaction, would mean death. Dissolution. If that's the case, it seems to me that the only thing that makes sense is to abstain. Not engage."

Edward scoffed. "No wonder your professor's concerned about you. Jean what's-his-name is all wrong."

"At least I don't have to depend on anyone else to be happy," Bella said. "Your satisfaction is predicated on the existence of another person. Mine isn't."

"But you're not happy," Edward concluded.

"I'm not?" Bella looked confused.

"Why else would you look up Alice? Why else are you here tonight? With her. With _me._ " Edward was angry at himself for questioning Bella's decision to stick around, but Bella's behavior really didn't make any sense to him. The way he saw it, Bella had to be either stupid or desperate. And he knew damn well that she wasn't stupid.

Bella glared at him. "The other night you said that I wanted revenge. Which is it? Either I'm lonely or I want revenge."

Edward grasped for another explanation. "Maybe you haven't made up your mind yet."

Bella tried to laugh. "Well I guess we'll never know."

Edward reached into a pocket and pulled out a pen. "Write it down," he said, pushing a napkin towards her.

"What?"

"Your intentions. Write them down. So that we can look back later."

"Later?"

"When the truth comes out." It made perfect sense to Edward.

"This is real life. Not a rom-com. There's not going to be some big reveal."

"Then what's the problem? Just write your intentions down."

Bella looked down at the napkin, taken aback by the turn in the conversation. "What are _your_ intentions?" She asked, turning the tables.

"What?"

"Did I stutter? What is it that _you_ want? Why are you suddenly Mr. Popular, hanging out with your family like this?"

"Why shouldn't I hang out with my family?"

"You've lived in Seattle for the past two years, but Alice told me that you never used to go out with Emmett. She said that you've barely spoken to your siblings in five years. You almost never go home to see your parents. Why the sudden interest?"

 _Damn Alice_ , Edward thought. "You expect me to answer that?" he asked, trying to buy time to think of an explanation.

"You expect me to divulge my intentions, so why not you?"

Edward didn't reply, his eyes on the pen.

Bella chided him again. "Come on, just admit it." Then, suddenly annoyed with the serious mood of the conversation, Bella decided to try and lighten it. "Emmett owes you money and you want revenge for all the times Alice made you help her sew one of her little outfits. You have a complicated plan involving trained monkeys and Manolo Blahniks."

"I'll do it," Edward replied, his voice so low that she almost didn't hear him.

"Pardon me?"

He cleared his throat and looked at her. "Write down your intentions, and I'll write down mine. We'll write down our theories about each other, about what it is we're really doing here, and we'll give the napkins to someone for safe keeping."

Bella couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Why?"

"Why not?"

 _Why not, indeed_ , Bella though. Only someone who had something to hide would refuse.

So Bella picked up the pen and hunched over her napkin, knowing what she _should_ write—the truth—but tempted, _oh so very tempted_ , to write something else.

Quickly scribbling something down, she looked up to find Edward surreptitiously trying to see what she'd written. Bella carefully folded her napkin, keeping the writing from his eyes. "To whom can we entrust such valuable pieces of evidence?" she asked pertly.

Edward fixed her with a suspicious gaze. "Not you."

"I thought I had the moral high ground here."

"Inexperience isn't the same thing as morality."

"Says the man who thinks that everyone's corrupt."

"You're just moral by default. There's nothing to brag about there."

Not wanting to argue, Bella pulled a manila envelope out of her backpack and checked to make sure it wasn't holding any of her students' quizzes. She put her napkin inside and held the envelope out for Edward to insert his. Then, she licked the flap and signed over the seal, before handing the envelope to Edward to follow suit.

"We'll give it to Rosalie," he said, adding his name over the seal. "I take it you consider her an impartial observer."

Bella shrugged, reaching for her backpack.

"You're leaving?" he asked.

She just nodded. In the brief time that it had taken Edward to sign his name to the envelope, Bella had realized that she was making a fool of herself. She was wrong to think that she could just pick up with the Cullens again. It wasn't enough to back out of the plan. She had to cut them all off. For good.

"Oh," Edward couldn't help feeling disappointed. They'd been getting along—or rather, they'd been sort of fighting, but at least they'd been talking. "Well, fine then. Until next time."

"Right," Bella curtly replied, turning away.

She had no intention of ever seeing any of the Cullens ever again.

 **AN:** **Thanks for reading.**

 **Rec:** _ **Operation: Merry Christmas**_ **by nicnicd - When Bella, alone for Christmas, bumps into a shy and quiet coed outside of her dorm will her negative outlook on the Holidays change? Twilight - Rated: M - English - Romance/Humor - Chapters: 9 - Words: 19,796 - Reviews: 291 - Favs: 384 - Follows: 188 - Updated: Mar 2, 2010 - Published: Mar 1, 2010 - Bella, Edward – Complete**


	6. Chapter 6

**Warning: Reference to suicidal thoughts and physical child abuse in this chapter. The latter isn't graphic, but I am posting a censored alternative chapter to Fanfiction if you would prefer to read that.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Plot belongs to me.**

" _Those who looked on the Gorgon's head must have had the sort of experience I've just undergone after spotting a really beautiful woman." –_ Lucian _Images,_ trans. by Keith Sidwell

Chapter 6

Edward was imagining again the spiral pattern that the chair would make if he threw it against the windows, the ripples of broken glass surging outward in slow motion, bubbling and billowing.

A fall from that height probably wouldn't kill Edward. He would have to go to the roof for that. Ten stories.

' _I'll push you_ ,' a voice in his head volunteered.

Edward cocked his head to the side in surprise at the words. The voice had a soothing cadence, like bells.

He sat up straighter. He recognized the voice.

It belonged to Isabella fucking Swan.

It only made sense that he would be imagining her voice making an offer like that. Once upon a time, she would have been more than willing to push him off a roof.

But now?

Edward considered the remaining gulf between the two of them. Despite all of his mockery, he could see that she had her whole life ahead of her. Her students liked her. She would be graduating soon.

While an outsider might say that Edward had accomplished far more than her—he was more or less established in a career, well into his residency—he was on thin ice at the hospital. He knew that.

And what friends did he really have? (He didn't mean Tanya and her crowd. _Real_ friends.)

He barely spoke to his family.

And even though he was supposed to be repairing his relationship with his family, the truth was that he'd only gone to that last happy hour because Emmett had said Bella was going to be there.

At the time, Edward told himself that, with Bella there, the ordeal of seeing his relatives would be slightly more tolerable, if only because at least some of the attention would be on her.

But there was more to it. Edward couldn't help feeling that some sick part of him got off on the way she treated him. On the way that she always put him down. His family had long since given up him. They would just ignore his quips.

When he first moved to Forks, they were always praising him, for the smallest things. Bella had never backed down though. She'd always called him out on his bullshit.

Some sick, masochistic part of Edward actually craved the way that she'd sneer at him. Because at least she was being honest. At least she was treating him the way that he deserved to be treated, the way that his birth mother had always treated him.

And just because they were adults now, that didn't mean that anything had changed. Edward could tell that Bella still despised him.

At that last happy hour, for instance, she had matched him barb for barb, countering all of his jabs.

" _What would it take to turn you on?"_ he'd asked, in part just to get a rise out of her.

She'd tried to avoid the question. But then she'd admitted that it was an intellectual challenge she really wanted.

Edward had been all-too-eager to see where this line of discussion would take them. Yet Bella had turned the tables on him, saying that he was the one with the real problem. " _You. Habituation. You've gotten bored with sex. So you keep pushing the limits with places like Breaking Dawn. But you can't keep upping the ante. It's just not feasible._ "

She'd figured him out alright, not that Edward was about to admit that. He had kept up the show, like it was just a friendly debate, when it was anything but.

Then, like an idiot, he had dared Bella to write down her intentions for him.

Writing his own intentions out on a napkin, it had been tempting to lie—to write something else down—but a wild kind of impetuous feeling had come over him. So what if Bella learned the truth?

Watching her drop her own napkin into the envelope, it had been all he could do not to snatch it away from her so that he could read what she'd written.

 _Get it together_ , he'd told himself.

But then she had just walked out. Just like that.

Watching her leave—as if she thought that he was a waste of time—Edward had started to crumple the envelope, but he'd stopped himself. He'd realized that he could just open it and have all of his questions answered.

Or could he? Had she told the truth?

He had yet to make a decision when Rosalie and Emmett returned, much tipsier than when they'd left. He had handed over the envelope with a cryptic request that Rosalie hold onto it for a while, then made his own departure.

And now here he was, staring out a window, and imagining Bella's voice.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

" _Gracias. Dios mio, gracias._ "

Edward tried to extricate himself from the sobbing woman.

" _Mi niño_."

Edward wasn't a complete monster. Intellectually, he understood the woman's fears.

But she would have to steel herself for the inevitable. There was no point in prevaricating.

He wondered what Bella would think of that, and handed the weeping _madre_ off to one of the nurses.

Realizing that he'd let Bella intrude upon his thoughts once again, Edward grimaced in annoyance.

Then he wondered if she would be at Newton's that night.

 _Was he actually looking forward to seeing her again?_ That couldn't possibly be true.

He tried to reason that his interest was purely scientific. Bella was like a fantastic bird long since thought extinct—going around as if she was so much better than everyone else. It was only fair that she be brought down to earth with the other mortals.

A lingering moral sense—more a learned knowledge of textbook right and wrong as opposed to any innate belief—told Edward that he was wrong for thinking it, but part of him wanted Bella just as she was, prized, like the nearly extinct creature she was, unobtainable, for everyone else at least, but not...

He didn't want to finish the thought.

It would be a challenge.

Something inside of him wanted it, and it had been a while since he had really wanted anything.

Edward left the hospital soon after finishing with the grateful _madre._ It was late. The streetlights were on, but the sidewalks were surprisingly crowded. It was only by chance that he happened to glimpse Bella.

She was walking in the opposite direction, down the other side of the street, a backpack slung behind her and books in her arms. Edward hesitated for only a few seconds, then continued down the sidewalk, his eyes resolutely on the ground, daring to glance back at her only after they'd passed each other.

But she was already out of sight.

Strangely irritated, Edward found himself wandering back in her direction.

He got to the corner and saw Bella passing under a streetlight a few blocks down. He wasn't sure how she'd managed to cover so much ground in such a short amount of time, but he sprinted to catch up, weaving his way through the traffic to cross the street and dodging a few pedestrians.

He stopped again when the street opened up onto a large thoroughfare. Swinging his head from side-to-side, Edward spied her on the next street over, waiting at a light. He took off again.

No longer caring about avoiding detection, Edward yelled Bella's name. But she kept walking, as if she couldn't hear him.

He wondered if she was ignoring him on purpose.

A pack of young females clearly out for a night on the town suddenly appeared in front of Edward, taking up the entire sidewalk with arms slung around each other. Edward maneuvered around them, shouting Bella's name again.

She'd already made it to the end of the next block by the time that Edward caught up with her.

He reached for her shoulder, but they were suddenly engulfed by a crowd of rowdy theater-goers.

Jostled by the mob, Bella stumbled. Edward steadied her, and pulled towards her to the side, backing the two of them into an alley.

Looking down at Bella, Edward started to laugh. "Where were you—"

He stopped.

Bella was gazing back at him, her eyes locked on his. It was unnerving.

Edward had noticed before how Bella tended to avoid his eyes. Unless she was angry, that is. She clearly had no qualms about staring him down whenever he said something to annoy her.

Her eyes now were strangely dark. And large.

He was going to ask if she was alright, but he couldn't get the words out.

And the expression on her face—

Edward's heart was hammering and it had nothing to do with the way he'd run to catch up with her.

He realized that he was still holding her by the elbows. Without even being consciously aware of just what he was doing, he found himself sliding his hands up her arms to her shoulders.

 _So soft._

God, her arms were so soft. Like down.

He slid a hand behind her neck, and took her chin in his other hand.

Shaking, he lowered his mouth, hesitating an inch away from her lips. She smelled like sunshine. He breathed in her scent, staring into her eyes.

Unable to take it anymore, he closed his eyes and turned her head to the side. He pressed his lips to the side of her mouth.

Edward shuddered against Bella's cool skin as a noise like a coo escaped her mouth. He slid his hands back down her arms, and froze.

Confused, he pulled back, looking at her arms.

Feathers. Her arms were covered in tiny feathers.

Edward felt lips moving against the skin of his neck. Then he felt a nip on his chin. Bella was trying to kiss him.

He tried to push her away.

She nipped him again; it hurt.

He pushed her away more forcibly, and this time she retreated. She retreated too quickly.

Edward could feel her slipping through his hands, and he reached out for her again.

Ghostly soft down tickled his fingertips as she slipped away.

He made a wild grab but she evaded him, ducking into the shadows of the alley.

Then, even as he watched she began to shift. To change.

Edward woke from this dream uncomfortably aroused.

He was fully aware that he was completely and utterly pitiful.

No, not _pitiful_. Not something deserving of pity. Because he deserved everything he got.

He certainly didn't think that a dream like this boded well for his progress in overcoming his…condition.

Gnashing his teeth in frustration, Edward heaved himself out of bed, resigned to blaming Bella.

Not that he wanted to fuck her.

No, that couldn't be it.

Edward just wanted to understand her. _To name her species_. That wasn't so strange was it?

And yeah, maybe he wanted to bring her down a peg or two.

It would be a public service. Everyone would be much better off without Bella going around looking down her nose at them.

In fact, Bella herself would probably be grateful. She'd be happy just to fit in.

 _Right._

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Edward looked for Bella every day. He scanned the sidewalks, looking for her as he went to and from work.

On one occasion, he had been so distracted while driving that he had narrowly avoided a kid who'd jumped right in front of his car running after a ball.

Because that's just what Edward's karma needed. A dead kid.

By the time Edward got to Newton's for the weekly happy hour, his beloved siblings were already there, as was Rosalie. But Bella had yet to show.

Alice updated Edward about her shop.

"You should come see it," she said. "I might even put you to work."

"I'd be about as useful in a clothes boutique as you would be in an OR," Edward replied.

It wasn't so much the words as his tone.

He wasn't actively trying to be cruel. He actually liked Alice—he probably liked her more than any of his other relatives. But that probably wasn't saying very much.

An awkward silence followed Edward's comment.

Annoyed, Rosalie decided that he deserved a little of his own medicine. "What's up with that envelope you gave me last week?" she asked.

"Just a bet Swan and I have going," Edward told her.

"Does the winner get a lap dance?" Rosalie laughed.

Edward grunted. He and Bella had never really specified the terms of their bet.

"Did you two fight last time?" Emmett asked.

"Who?" Edward quirked an eyebrow, feigning ignorance even though he knew damn well what Emmett was talking about.

"You and Bella. She ran away before we could come back to the table. Were you a jerk again?"

Assuming a haughty tone, Edward replied, "On the contrary, our conversation was quite friendly."

Emmett snorted, while Alice and Rosalie merely shook their heads.

Edward assumed an even haughtier tone. "I _am_ capable of carrying on polite conversation."

Emmett raised his glass in a salute. "And _I_ am capable of making this my last drink of the night." He drank it down in one long swallow, then grinned. "But it would go against my nature."

Edward glanced at the door.

"So, why does she still hate you so much?" Emmett asked. "I never understood why the two of you would go at each other."

Emmett was four years younger than Edward and three years younger than Bella. And while Emmett knew that something had happened between Edward and Bella, neither he nor Alice knew just what it was.

Edward shrugged. "It's not that interesting."

"You sleep with her boyfriend?" Rosalie asked.

Edward glared at her.

"It's a fair question," she defended herself. "I hear that you've pissed off a lot of people by sleeping with their significant others."

He shook his head. "Unless she's a lesbian, I don't think that's the problem."

"Maybe she doesn't like doctors," Rosalie continued speculating.

"Why wouldn't she like doctors?"

"You stick people with needles for fun," Alice pointed out.

"I fucking save lives, is what I do." _This_ was why he avoided seeing his family. They piled on.

"You've saved lives?" Emmett asked. "Who?"

"Who what?" Edward was in no mood for Emmett's games.

" _Who_ have you saved?"

"Orphans and babies, who the hell do you think? _People_. I save people. Just yesterday, a woman came in with a knife wound to the chest because her husband had tried to kill her. She would have died without me." Edward glanced back at the door, looking for Bella.

"What was her name?"

Edward craned his neck, trying to see around a gaggle of interns who'd just walked in, still in their scrubs. "What?"

"Her. Name." Emmett spoke slowly if to a child. "What. Was. It?"

Edward noticed a brunette— _Bella?_

No, she was too short.

Edward turned back to Emmett. "I haven't the slightest idea what her name was. My job's to save them, not set up their Facebook profiles."

"You don't even remember her name?" Alice sounded a little shocked.

"It's better if we don't think of the patients as people. Subjectivity can complicate treatment."

Rosalie huffed. "So what you're saying is, you don't treat the patients like humans because it would make it harder for you to do your job."

"Exactly." Edward started tapping his foot. If Bella didn't show up _right now_ —

Emmett tilted his glass in Edward's direction. "Except that they _are_ humans and your job is to make their lives better as _humans_."

Edward glared at his brother. "I'd like to see you do my job and keep up your jovial façade. It's not as easy as it looks."

"Never said it looked easy. And just to be clear, you couldn't do my job either. But I'm better at mine than you are at yours."

That got Edward's attention. "How do you figure?"

"I have a job and a girlfriend and a life and a family and somehow I manage to continue functioning. What have you got?"

Edward heard Alice gasp at Emmett's words, but he also noticed that she wasn't jumping in to call Emmett out for his crap.

"I've got a job that has me working eighty hours a week," Edward pointed out.

Emmett snorted again. "You should see me during playoffs. And dude, there's always a playoff. I even cover curling."

Edward blinked. "Curling?"

"Hey," Emmett admonished, "don't knock it until you've tried it. Better yet, don't mock anything that keeps your dear brother in the black."

Edward glanced at the door again.

"Looking for someone?" Rosalie smirked.

"Bella said that she'd try to come," Alice announced. "But she has a lot of work this week."

Alice said that Bella had promised to try, but that she had a lot of work that week.

Edward stuck around for another hour before he gave up on Bella showing. Explaining that he had an early surgery the next morning, Edward left the bar.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Edward was running. When he first went to live in Forks with his father, Carlisle, and his father's new wife, Esme, he'd been given all of the encouragement he needed to go out for sports.

To be honest, Carlisle and Esme just wanted Edward to get a chance to play, like the kid he was.

But Edward wasn't exactly a playful teenager. He would sometimes horse around with Emmett, who was only ten when Edward moved in, but that was mostly to keep Emmett happy.

Edward had never really played sports before moving to Forks. There'd be a game of pick-up basketball now and then, but he and his friends always had to be careful to avoid the dealers, who'd get riled up over how the game was going or would want the court for themselves. Edward had taken PE in school, of course, but there were only so many times you could make a kid run around an inner city school gymnasium.

Forks was different. There were wide open spaces with just miles and miles of—of _space_. Edward could run and run and run until he passed out.

A week after Edward's arrival in Forks, he went running. Really, it was just to get away from his family. The Cullens weren't so bad. They were nothing like his mother, Victoria. But sometimes _that_ was the problem. The Cullens were just so fucking _good_ to him. And sometimes he couldn't take it.

So he told them that he was going running.

Edward disappeared for two hours and by the time that he got back, Carlisle was on the phone with the park service, demanding that they send out a search party for his son.

After that, Edward had to promise to bring his phone with him whenever he went running. The cell service didn't actually work all that well out in the woods, but everyone ignored that little tidbit. And anytime Edward felt overwhelmed, he'd go running. Carlisle and Esme could see that it was good for him—it helped with his obvious anxiety—but they were also worried that Edward was spending too much time alone.

So they encouraged him to try out for a sports team. He didn't do well with contact sports. The fear that another player might come at him was almost enough to cause Edward to have a full-blown panic attack, but that also encouraged him to run all the faster. So he played baseball. Track and field was a no-brainer. The team practiced together and Edward had to work on hand-offs for the relay, but Edward still ran by himself as often as he could.

When he went away to college, Edward continued running. He ran all the way through med school and through his internship, even when he was utterly exhausted. When everyone else was taking uppers, Edward declined—he didn't want to be anything like his mother—and went running instead. He'd run with headphones, listening to lectures that he'd recorded or listening to his own voice reading aloud from his notes, the words working into his subconscious as he forced himself to go just another mile, his lips silently mouthing the phrases.

Now that he was a resident, Edward continued running. When he was still high with adrenaline from a surgery, instead of taking a downer, he'd run.

There was something soothing about it. Muscle memory taking over when everything else in him was long past the point of giving up. The rhythmic sound of his breathing and the tattoo of his feet against the pavement. It was meditative.

Edward was always careful to avoid drugs and alcohol. They were his mother's weaknesses.

But avoiding the obvious pitfalls just made it that much more difficult for Edward to realize that he had followed in his mother's footsteps after all. It was a while before he recognized his addiction.

He was addicted to running, of course. Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing that he was addicted to.

And since running was by far the least harmful of the two addictions, he figured that he'd keep running until he'd handled his other issue.

As a result, he was running more and more these days.

Some weeks, Edward would run for up to two hours a day.

He'd run and he'd think.

And what he was thinking about these days was Bella.

He was annoyed.

He was annoyed that he was thinking about her at all.

A part of him had even decided that it was, in fact, all of her fault. That he never would have developed his addiction to sex in the first place if not for Bella.

Because the first time he ordered Lauren Mallory to get on her knees, it was to spite Bella. He was the one with his dick in Lauren's mouth, and he was the one who told her to put it there, but it wouldn't have happened—not like that, not then—if not for Bella.

That was bullshit, of course. If anyone was to blame for Edward's condition, it was Edward. And if not him, then it was his bitch of a mother, Victoria.

But hating his mother just fueled his addiction. He'd read enough psycho-babble to know that.

And yes, he still thought it was just psycho-babble. Edward had been forced into therapy when he was a teenager and had not been impressed.

He had recently considered giving it another go, but he didn't think it would work. A patient was vulnerable to his therapist, and Edward couldn't make himself that vulnerable to anyone, no matter the reason. His career depended on his ability to remain in control. In charge.

Nevertheless, Edward was smart enough to look into the literature surrounding his condition. And everything said that he had to forgive his mother.

Yeah, fuck that.

Every time he thought of her, it was just tunnel-vision, a rage that he couldn't get rid of without running and running and running.

And as for his other addiction?

Well, the psycho-babble all said that it was just an attempt to compensate for a feeling of inadequacy.

Like he didn't already know that.

Besides, the women he was with _wanted_ it. They fucking _asked_ for it. They could stop it at any time. They were the ones who were really in control.

And Edward had never let himself get carried away. Every time, it was like he was saying that he _wasn't_ his mother, that he was better than her, because he _could_ stop.

Not that his mother had ever done anything like that to him. Oh, she beat the crap out of him, but she never—

Time and time again, he had _begged_ —fucking _begged—_ her to stop. And had she?

No. Not until he _made_ her stop.

He was fourteen when the police finally took him away from her. _Fourteen_. Old enough for some of the things she would say to maybe be true, except that she'd been saying shit like that for years, hadn't she? Accusing him of looking at girls. Wanting to fuck them. Wanting to—

Who says that to a kid?

Victoria had never—

But he sometimes wondered—if he hadn't gotten away—what would have happened if he'd stayed.

And yeah, there times when it felt like he was just fulfilling destiny, when he'd say and do the very things that his mother had once accused him of wanting to do.

He hated the fact that he was making her right—that fucking bitch—because it was like confirming that he had deserved every single fucking thing that she'd ever done to him.

And that hatred had only added more fuel to his desire to act on his worst impulses.

Because what was the fucking point of trying to resist?

It was a circle.

Meanwhile, his condition had gotten out of control.

He'd been caught having sex at work. He'd nearly lost his job.

He'd even introduced Tanya to his parents.

Fucking _Tanya_.

He had taken her to Forks for the weekend, not caring anymore what his parents thought of him.

No, that wasn't true. Edward cared what Esme and Carlisle thought of him. That was the problem. He wanted to destroy the picture they had in their head of him. He wanted them to know just how fucked up he really was. Because they kept giving Edward chance after chance. Even when he slept with Emmett's girlfriend.

And Edward had just gotten in trouble at work. It was only a matter of time before he lost his job.

Edward wanted nothing more than for his family to cut him off once and for all.

But that trip to meet his parents was a disaster from beginning to end.

That first day, Esme brought out the goddamn family albums and home movies, like she thought that she could resurrect the old Edward from a couple of pieces of celluloid.

Then Carlisle told Edward the news.

It turned out that Carlisle had been keeping tabs on Victoria through the years. Not that Carlisle owed that bitch anything. Carlisle's name wasn't even on Edward's original birth certificate, but Edward knew his name thanks to Victoria's drunken stories about the guy who'd knocked her up, _Carlisle fucking Cullen_. Thus, Edward was able to give Carlisle's name to Child Protective Services, not that Edward expected his father to step in and do any good. According to Victoria, Carlisle Cullen was a useless fuck who'd been on the fast track to nowhere. Fortunately for Edward, the social worker assigned to his case tracked Victoria Masen all of the way back to Forks, Victoria's hometown, and discovered that a Carlisle Cullen was indeed in residence. The community had started a fund and paid for Carlisle's education with the agreement that he'd come back after he got his medical license and open up a practice. The other Masens, Victoria's family, had long since scattered, but Carlisle had a wife, and two children from his wife's previous marriage, Alice and Emmett. Carlisle had no idea that Edward even existed, but there could be no doubting the physical resemblance, and a DNA test confirmed their relationship.

It wasn't difficult for Carlisle to secure full custody of Edward.

That was just another spit in Edward's face, the way that Victoria didn't even _try_ to keep him. She could have gotten counselling. She could have done something. But no.

So why the fuck was Carlisle suddenly expecting Edward to give a shit about her?

Carlisle sympathized with Edward's position, but he always assumed that Edward would want to see his mother again one day, to try and get closure if nothing else.

Thus, Carlisle was very disappointed to learn that she had died from an overdose.

As it turned out, however, Edward didn't give a fuck.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked Carlisle. The Cullens were Edward's real family, weren't they? _So why the fuck was Carlisle telling him this?_

Carlisle tried to explain, and after a while, Edward seemed to calm down. In fact, he appeared to be perfectly at peace as he bid his parents farewell, and returned to Seattle with Tanya.

It was the kind of calm that comes over a person when he decides to throw it all away.

He was right there, on the precipice.

With a woman he'd met at Breaking Dawn.

They'd gone to a hotel a block away from the bar. It wasn't the first time he'd brought a woman there. Many of the bar's patrons regularly got rooms for an hour or two if not the whole night.

He had blindfolded the woman, because she said that she wanted him to. And he was standing over the bed watching her writhe in anticipation, his hands shaking with the awful desire washing over him.

Awful, because he was so damn angry.

And he was smoking. He never smoked. But his mother had smoked like a chimney and he had the cigarette burns to prove it.

He could feel this thing inside of him, this thing wanting to come out.

And it was like the smoke was part of this thing, this fucking monster uncurling inside of him and licking through his veins, the _need_ , the awful tearing _need_ , to—

And he stopped.

Because what the fuck was he doing?

What the fuck was he _doing_?

What the actual _fuck_ was he _really_ doing?

Because he didn't want to be in control. He didn't want to stop.

Because he knew that it wouldn't be enough.

The satisfaction wouldn't fill whatever was missing inside of him.

And he didn't want to be like his mother.

Like his fucking mother, that goddamn bitch.

Edward untied the woman and left.

He hadn't had sex since. The last time that he'd had sex, it was that weekend with Tanya at his parents. And Edward had been turning down all of Tanya's invitations since. He had been ignoring all of the solicitations of the so-called friends he'd met through Tanya or through Breaking Dawn.

Because sex, sometimes, is an addiction.

Of course, Edward knew that sex was healthy. That it _should_ be healthy. Even rough sex. Even kinky sex.

Edward knew this, intellectually at least, and he'd been trying to convince Bella of this as much as himself with all of that talk about the value of sex.

And even though part of Edward was still angry at Bella for that stunt involving Lauren Mallory all of those years ago, Edward knew that his addiction wasn't Bella's fault.

Unfortunately, he wasn't so sure that about his own part in what looked like an aversion to sex on Bella's part. It wouldn't be his fault, not directly, but he was there that night in Port Angeles. And he'd certainly made a mistake with regard to Bella's mother.

So yeah, Edward was running and thinking about Bella. He was still struggling with his addiction—and he was mad at himself for caving the other night and walking into Breaking Dawn. Then there was his anxiety about the situation he'd gotten himself into at work, to say nothing of the mistakes he'd made with his family.

And on top of it all, here was Bella.

Exhausted, but forcing himself to run just one more mile, Edward returned to his apartment drained.

And in his relaxed state, Edward was able to admit that seeing Bella again wasn't all bad.

At least she knew him. There would always be a part of him that was Masen, not Cullen. His so-called relatives might think that they loved him, but it was for precisely that reason that they would never really understand him. Bella was different.

Edward knew it the first time they met. The first time he looked into her eyes. She was broken. Just like him. And he hated her for it.

Newly showered and dressed, Edward was still tired from his run, but he didn't have to work and he didn't want to sit at home.

A few months ago, a day with nothing to do would have brought him to Breaking Dawn, looking for a woman—or two—to pick up. Today, he decided to head downtown.

Edward had never been particularly fond of window shopping, but it had been a long time since he had let himself just wander around, taking in the sights, with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

When Edward saw the woman standing on the other side of the street, the scene was so reminiscent of his dream that at first he thought that he was asleep again.

He was awake, though. And there was Bella, alive and in the flesh.

Walking into his favorite sex shop.

 **AN:**

 **No, Edward is not "hearing voices." It's just his imagination.**

 **If Edward's freaking you out: Reminder, he does engage in consensual rough sex, but that's it. This is the one and only chapter that has Edward teetering on the edge like this. He's recognized that he's at a precipice—that he could become an abuser. I think that's an issue worth looking at, if only because we all of us, victims of abuse or not, have the potential to wreak very real damage on others, physical or not. I've certainly been stuck in the moment, when I've considered the next words that could come out of my mouth, when I've wondered if I really want to hurt a person as much as I could with what I'm thinking of saying. I've teetered at the edge. My Edward has done his own teetering, in a way that's much more physical, but this story's a metaphor, isn't it? Having stood on the precipice and stepped back, does that mean that I never open my mouth again? Does that mean that Edward never has sex again? Or that he only has vanilla sex for now on? Where's the line?**

 **I think it's important to explore these questions, because ignoring them means ignoring the degree to which we're responsible for our actions. We might be inclined in certain directions (by previous experiences), but we choose to follow our inclinations or to head in another direction. By ignoring the fact that some people see the temptation and refuse to follow it, I'm afraid we enable abusers to excuse their own behavior by saying it's natural/inevitable/they can't help themselves.**

 **Again, Edward's never going to be physically abusive. But neither he nor Bella are perfect. They have and will do things that can be interpreted as mentally abusive. This story is about them learning how to break the cycle.**

 **This isn't a story about feeling sorry for abusive people. It's a story about how people who are inclined towards unhealthy behavior learn to take responsibility for their lives and change.**

 **If you're in a physically or mentally abusive relationship, get out. It doesn't matter if the person abusing you is your lover or your friend or a relative. I've been in mentally abusive relationships. The person who's abusing you will try to make it your fault. It's not. They're choosing to do this to you. You don't deserve it. Don't feel sorry for them. Speaking from personal experience, I know that you can become addicted to being with a person who's abusive. And this story is about addicts breaking free.**

 **I think that this is the last long AN in this story.**

 **Diamond in the rough Rec:** _ **Blind Date from Hell?**_ **by bebe86** Bella is unlucky in love and has been set up on one bad blind date after another by Alice and Rose. She finally agrees to one last blind date with Edward Cullen, but is this going to be the worst blind date yet? Rated M for language and lemons. AH, B/E - Twilight - Rated: M - English - Romance/Humor - Chapters: 34 - Words: 104,173 - Reviews: 756 - Favs: 805 - Follows: 473 - Updated: Feb 20, 2010 - Published: Aug 28, 2009 - Bella, Edward – Complete


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Plot belongs to me.**

" _Are we going to let others drain [the cup] so as to keep the dregs for ourselves?"_ – Seneca the Younger, Letter CVIII translated by Robin Campbell

Chapter 7

It turned out that Bella was _not_ , as Edward had believed, entering a sex shop.

The rare and used bookshop on the main floor happened to share the same entrance as the sex shop-cum-tattoo-parlor upstairs.

It wasn't until Edward spied Bella through the front window of the book shop that he breathed a sigh of relief.

Though why he should be relieved to find that Bella wasn't in a sex shop— _his_ sex shop—was a problem in and of itself, wasn't it? Because it wasn't as if it was any of his business what she did with her spare time.

Nevertheless, Edward continued watching as Bella turned down a narrow aisle running perpendicular to the window. He watched her study the titles for a few moments, and he had very nearly convinced himself to leave her there, when he saw Bella freeze.

An elderly man had just entered the far end of the aisle. The poor tiny, inconsequential man didn't even notice Bella, pausing to examine the shelves, his fingers trembled over the books he was examining. But Edward could tell that Bella was aggravated.

She had turned away from the newcomer, as though trying to ignore him. As the little man shuffled towards her, she shifted, adopting a territorial stance.

The little man moved on to another aisle, and Edward observed in amusement as the tension immediately flowed out of Bella's form.

She obviously had no idea that she was being watched. A small smile was playing across her lips as she took down volume after volume, a stack of books already tucked under one arm. A rare ray of Seattle sunlight came through the window and cast a golden glow around Bella's shoulders, her hair glinting in the light. Dust motes spun in the air around her.

Bella's happy reverie was dispelled when a teenaged girl entered the aisle. The whole exotic dance from before was replayed before Edward's eyes, Bella clearly wanting to shoo the girl away but clearly at a loss for how to go about doing it. At one point, the girl bent over to retrieve a book from the bottom shelf, and Edward openly guffawed at the unrestrained hostility on Bella's face as she glared down at the poor creature.

Edward remembered the time that he caught Bella trying to steal a book from his stepmother Esme's collection. At least, that's how it had looked to him.

"I'm not stealing it!" Bella had cried, but her face was beet-red.

"If you're not stealing, then why're you creeping around?" Edward had asked.

Finding the two of them yelling at each other, Esme had told Bella to simply take the book, but Bella was so embarrassed, she declared that she had no intention of reading it in the first place, she was just looking at it.

Edward tried to remember the name of the book. But for the life of him, he couldn't. And he couldn't remember what Bella had done to him in order to get even. He was sure that she'd done something...

That was just the way they were back then. They were adversaries. Bella was the only one who'd stand up to Edward, the only one who'd call him on his bullshit.

Fucked up though it was, Edward couldn't help feeling like Bella had known him better than his own family.

Not quite knowing why, Edward entered through the shared entrance with the sex shop upstairs and continued on into the book shop.

Navigating several stacks, Edward planted himself at the end of the aisle Bella was working her way down, and nonchalantly pulled a book off of a shelf. Ovid's _Metamorphoses._

"What are _you_ doing here?" Bella hissed.

A carefully manufactured expression of surprise gracing his features, Edward turned.

"Why, Swan, how nice to see you," he greeted her with faux good cheer. He wasn't sure just what he was doing. It wasn't as if he and Bella were friends. Hell, Edward didn't even how to go about being someone's friend. But something drew him to her.

Bella was glaring at him with the open animosity. She looked like she wanted to stamp her foot.

And Edward couldn't help being amused. Seeing her like this, so worked up, and all over _books_ , entertained him far more than it probably should have. But he couldn't help it.

He sobered up. "What's got you all hot and bothered? Don't want anyone to know your taste in reading?" Before she could stop him, he pulled the load of books right out of her arms.

With a cry of indignation, Bella tried to take the books back.

"Un uh," Edward chastened, clasping the lot of them to his chest and raising one over her head to read the title.

"Give it back," Bella ordered, yanking on Edward's arm.

"Be good," he admonished.

To an observer, it might have looked as though Edward was flirting with Bella. In fact, Edward _might_ have been flirting, were it anyone but Bella with whom he was dealing. But they had too much history together.

Experts in the area of Edward's particular condition all agree that sex is just a substitute for an inability to form adequate relationships. A lack of genuine, healthy attachments is the real culprit behind the compulsion to settle for shallow physical contact. Subconsciously, a person knows that meaningless sex is a poor substitute for real relationships, and makes up the difference in quality through quantity. Addiction results, with an addict becoming dependent on the rush of biochemicals associated with satiation.

The recovery of an addict depends on his or her willingness to seek out and form genuine, healthy attachments, replacing cheap thrills with the more lasting joy of real commitment.

Unfortunately, Edward didn't know how to just come out and say what he wanted. Indeed, he would've denied wanting anything at all to do with Bella. Which any casual observer would've known at once was a lie.

So, because Edward knew that it would piss her off, because it was just too easy for Edward to fall back into his old adversarial stance when it came to Bella, he was acting like he wanted a fight with her. Like he wanted her to yell at him. When the truth was, Edward wanted just the opposite, didn't he? He wanted a little pat on the head, and someone to say that he was, in fact, doing better. Getting better.

But why Bella? Why choose her for such an endorsement?

While Edward wasn't quite ready for the more daunting task of developing genuine friendships, he had in fact developed a desire to repair his relationship with his family. After years of putting up with him, they had very nearly written him off. So Edward needed someone to testify on his behalf, and who better for such a task than Bella?

But he was going about it all wrong, wasn't he? Acting like this was a game.

Meanwhile, Bella was anything but amused. _Fucking gaslighting_ , Bella thought. Edward was fucking gaslighting her. Bullying her and then acting like she was being childish for putting up a fight.

It was working too—she didn't want to cause a scene. Not here. Not in her favorite bookshop.

So Bella dropped her arms and crossed her arms.

And she was a sight to behold in her quiet fury. There were patches of pink on her creamy cheeks, brown tendrils of hair snaking around her neck.

Not that Edward was noticing or anything. "Well, well, is it the Marquis de Sade or Erica Jong?" he joked, glancing down to read the first title: _Poems of Sappho._

"You've _got_ to be kidding me," Edward chuckled, his mirth giving Bella an opening to snatch the Sappho away as he scanned the rest of the titles. Not recognizing a single name, he offered the books back to her.

Her chin went up as she snatched them from him, as if daring him to say another word.

But of course he couldn't hold his tongue. "I don't get it," he said.

"Get what?" Bella voice was careful, suspicious.

He jerked his head at the books. "The way you're acting. Like they're dirty tell-alls."

Bella sniffed imperiously. "I wouldn't expect you to have heard of them." She paused. "I wouldn't want them if you had."

Edward smirked and turned to investigate the shelves she'd been scanning. He was well aware of the fact that she was watching him, her head cocked to the side, like a wild bird wary of his next move.

"Don't you have something else to do besides watching me?" Edward asked, pulling a book off the shelf to examine. "I'd like some peace and quiet while I shop."

He heard her quick intake of breath. But instead of retorting, she spun on her heel, staying in the aisle to study the careworn volumes lining the top shelf of the opposite bookcase.

Abandoning his post, Edward turned and leaned against the bookcase she was studying, putting his hands in his pocket as he watched her.

Bella tensed. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Watching the animal in her natural habitat," he answered.

Her eyes darted between him and the bookcase. "Don't do that."

"What is it that's got you so worked up?" He glanced at the volumes she was looking at and shook his head. "Saint Augustine got your nether regions tingling?"

"Augustine was a prick," she retorted.

Edward leaned forward. "Maybe you like pricks," he suggested.

"I don't like _you_ ," she replied a trifle shrilly. "And I don't care what you do." She turned back to the shelf.

Edward didn't reply, opting instead to observe Bella as she endeavored to ignore him.

Her hand darted forward and froze in midair once, twice, and then again—he wondered if her hesitancy was born solely of the fact that he was watching.

Huffing, Bella finally pulled a book off the shelf. She pivoted away from Edward and flipped through the pages. Even with her face turned, Edward could see the lines of anger smoothing away from her brow as she studied the book.

Noticing that Bella was having difficulty balancing all the books in her arms he decided to make an offer, in part just because (naturally) he knew that it would annoy her. "I could hold them for you."

"No," Bella refused.

"But I could look them over while you peruse the shelves. Better my mind. Don't you want me bettering my mind?"

"Absolutely not!" she snapped, slamming the book she'd been studying closed and returning it to the shelf.

"Some teacher you are, denying me an education," Edward said as he pulled the books out of her arms. "Ever heard of this thing called the kindle?" he asked.

"I like to hold a book in my hand."

"You hold a kindle."

"I like the feel of a book."

"The feel?" Edward sounded surprised.

"The smell."

"The feel and the smell?"

"I like to run my fingers over the pages," Bella said. "Feel the grain of the page. And the smell—it's not for everyone I suppose. But it's"—she paused as though at a loss for words—"arresting."

Edward studied her for a minute. "Are you sure that you're talking about books?"

Bella's eyes snapped to his. "Of course Masen. What did you think?"

Edward ignored her use of the name _Masen_ (which was clearly meant to insult him) _,_ and raised his eyebrows suggestively.

"Just books," she repeated.

"Riiiiight," he drawled.

Bella marched out of the aisle.

"Are you done shopping?" Edward asked as he followed a step behind.

"No I'm not done."

"Looking for more salacious debauchery?" Edward inquired, his voice a bit too loud for Bella's liking.

"Shh!" she hissed, glancing around to see if anyone had overheard.

Snickering, Edward dropped his voice. "Relax. It's not like it's a sex shop."

Bella did not deign to reply. Flipping her hair over her shoulder, she marched to the back of the shop, Edward following right along.

When she stopped in front of another bookcase, he couldn't help taking another jab. "Anything _tempting_?" he asked.

But she didn't take the bait. Doing her best to ignore him, she scanned the titles in silence for a few minutes.

When, with an annoyed huff, Bella pulled a volume off of the shelf and turned, she almost walked into Edward.

"What's with you?" she demanded.

"Nothing's _with_ me," he grumbled, shuffling out of her way.

Bella re-shelved the book at far end of the row, where it belonged, then returned to her original spot, pausing to glare at Edward until he shuffled out of her way.

"Do you have to stand so close?" she whispered a minute later.

Edward didn't realize that he'd sidled back up behind her—he was trying to read the titles over her shoulder. "Do I make you nervous?" he asked, retreating a step.

" _No_. I just don't"—she moved three inches to the right—"see why you insist on stalking me."

"Stalking?"

She shrugged.

"I'm hardly stalking you," he lied. "If anything, you're the one stalking me, following my family around. I'm just here gathering data so that I know what I'm up against."

"You can gather data from over there." Bella waved a hand at the end of the aisle.

"Why can't I stand next to you? Don't you like me?"

"No." She straightened up. "No, I do not."

"But I can help you find a book." Grabbing a volume at random, Edward offered it to her. "What about this one? It's so _big_."

"You're not funny," she chastised, snatching the book away from him and returning it to the shelf.

"Come on, can't I _tempt_ you with anything?" he teased.

"I _hate_ you," she spat in a low tone.

Edward spied another book over her shoulder. "What about that one?" he asked.

"I wish you would leave me alone."

"Why?"

"Do I go to Breaking Dawn and critique your choice in women?"

"You could," he said. "I wouldn't mind. Maybe this time _you_ could get the lap dance." He hesitated. "That might actually be a good idea. Maybe you swing the other way and just don't know it."

"What would it take to get you to leave me alone?"

Alas, there was absolutely nothing that Edward could think of that would get him to leave just at that moment.

So he told her that.

And she looked like she wanted to slap him.

But before she could, he made her an offer. "Have dinner with me."

"What?"

Edward was as taken aback by his suggestion as Bella appeared to be. But he repeated himself. "Have dinner with me. Tonight."

"Why?" Bella's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Why not? You're Alice's friend. And Alice is my sister."

"That doesn't seem like a very good reason."

"Alice thinks it's my fault that you didn't come to the last happy hour." Edward was still pissed about that. Pissed at Alice for not taking his side, pissed at Bella for not showing, and pissed at himself for pissing Bella off and then for caring whether or not she was pissed off. (He was also discouraged by it all, disappointed even, but not _depressed_. That would be taking it too far.) "Let me take you to dinner, and then I can tell Alice how very nice I was to you. Get her off my back."

"Just lie to her. Tell Alice we went to dinner and had a nice time. I won't tell her the truth."

Edward hadn't expected that. "Not good enough. I'm no good at lying to Alice." This was a lie.

"That's not my problem."

"Go to dinner with me and I won't bother you while you pick out the rest of your books." It was his original offer, but it was all he had.

"That's fucked up."

"Take it or leave it."

Sighing, Bella gave up. "Fifteen minutes," she said. "Give me fifteen minutes with your mouth shut and ten inches of breathing room."

"Just fifteen minutes?"

"Fifteen minutes."

"Ten inches?"

"At least ten inches."

He gave her a full twelve.

Taking a cleansing breath, Bella turned back to the shelves.

Edward could tell that she was fighting with herself over which books to choose. She kept coming back to the same books, pulling them off of the shelf, flipping through the pages, and then returning them to the shelves. When the fifteen minutes were up and Bella turned away, free of any new books, Edward pulled down the volume she'd tarried over the longest.

"What are you doing?" Bella asked, stopping to look back at him.

"Buying a book," Edward explained, passing Bella on the way to the register.

"You read Latin?" she demanded.

"Doesn't everyone?"

"Translate the first line," she challenged.

"Really? Rather petty of you, don't you think?"

"You don't know Latin!"

Edward handed a twenty to the sales clerk and smirked at Bella. "Nope, not a word."

"Then why are you buying it?"

"Because you don't want me to." Edward took his change back from the sales clerk, and gestured for Bella to put her books on the counter.

"I thought you were trying to be nice to me," she said, as she paid.

"How am I not being nice? I'm going out of my way to learn all about the things that interest my good friend, Isabella Swan."

She scowled at him, and then turned to head for the exit. Pausing on the landing, she looked back at him. "I have an errand to run now."

"Ok."

"So I'll just meet you for dinner."

"Can't I go along with you?"

Bella huffed. "Fine, I don't care. You don't bother me."

"Keep telling yourself that."

Not replying, she started towards the stairs.

"Where're you going?" Edward asked in surprise.

She squinted at him. "Upstairs."

"Here?"

"Yeah. Here."

Edward remained on the landing, gaping up at her.

She was going up to the sex shop.

 **AN: Posting early since I feel guilty for breaking a single day up into several chapters. I hope that you don't think that the tone has changed too drastically from the previous chapter.**

 **My apologies for not replying to reviews. Will do so ASAP.**

 **The book shop scene was again taken from outtake #6 of** _ **Gothic**_ **and was originally written for** _ **Corrupting Influence.**_

 **Gaslighting – from the movie** _ **Gaslight**_ **– starring Ingrid Bergman (only movie I like her in), Joseph Cotton (whom I love), and Charles Boyer. Highly recommended.**

 **Marquis de Sade – wrote sadomasochistic sexual tales**

 **Erica Jong – writes about erotica**

 **Sappho – ancient Greek poet known for, among other things, erotic literature**

 **Augustine of Hippo 5th cent. – Bella's opinion is entirely her own (it's Augustine's attitudes towards women that really annoy her). No offense towards Catholics intended.**

 **Rec:** Another Christmas fic as the season draws to a close: _It Must Have Been the Mistletoe_ by KristenLynn Edward has avoided Bella—and her annoying crush—for three years. This year, an encounter under the mistletoe at the Chief's Christmas Eve party changes everything, in ways neither of them expected. Under the Mistletoe contest continuation, NOW COMPLETE Twilight - Rated: M - English - Romance - Chapters: 7 - Words: 32,234 - Reviews: 381 - Favs: 536 - Follows: 221 - Updated: Jan 26, 2011 - Published: Dec 24, 2010 - Edward, Bella – Complete


	8. Chapter 8

**My apologies for the delay. Computer problems, RL, blah blah blah.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyer. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, plot belongs to me.**

" _I hate and love. Why I do so, perhaps you ask / I know not, but I feel it, and I am in torment_." – Catullus on Clodia Pulcher

Chapter 8

"'Fuck you, boys, up the butt and in the mouth,'" Dr. Volturri shouted from the front of the classroom.

 _Well, at least they're awake now_ , Bella thought as she watched the students shift uneasily.

Dr. Volturri continued shouting vulgar lines of Latin poetry, twitching behind the podium in a garish hot pink suit, waving her arms manically.

Dr. Eleazar, the professor Bella TAed for, was away at a conference, and Dr. Volturri was lecturing in his stead.

The very same Dr. Volturri who still hadn't approved Bella's proposal for a dissertation.

Not that Bella was holding a grudge or anything.

Ok, _maybe_ Bella was holding a grudge. But she was trying to be open-minded about the quality of Dr. Volturri's lecture.

Bella was making allowances for the fact that she was in a bad mood. She'd stayed late at the data entry center the previous night—well after she'd been forced to clock out—looking for some data an incompetent co-worker had lost (there was no way Bella was taking the blame for the asshat's mistake). And Bella was trying not to let her exhaustion bias her against Dr. Volturri's performance.

Bella was even making allowances for her own prudishness—

But there werelimits.

Listening to Dr. Volturri ramble on about Julius Caesar's bedroom habits, Bella had an eerie premonition that she was going to be stuck reading a stack of midterms blaming the fall of the Roman Republic on a rising penchant for sexual exploration.

As if the American Revolution could be blamed on corsets.

Bella's fellow TAs, Angela and Jacob, being glass half-full types, with nary a thought of midterms, had decided to sit back and enjoy Dr. Volturri's performance for what it was. Bella simmered, and they snickered.

Fortunately for Bella, the lecture was at last coming to a close.

"As you contemplate your own failed romances," Dr. Volturri simpered, "falling in and out of love, remember, not even two great lovers like Clodia Pulcher and Catullus could make it last." She paused. "But then no one picks a poet over a dictator, do they?" Smirking over her little _bon mot_ , Dr. Volturri finally switched off the mic.

"I don't know," Angela whispered as students began filing out of the room. "I bet Catullus let Clodia tie him up. I can't picture Julius Caesar ever playing the submissive."

"Julius Caesar had an affair with the king of Nicomedia," Bella pointed out.

"Bullshit," Jacob replied.

"Suetonius said so," Bella defended herself.

"Who cares?" Angela objected. "Doesn't mean Caesar'd let a woman tie him down."

"Clodia was a freak," Jacob asserted.

Angela snorted. "The guy doesn't _always_ have to be on top. Isn't that right, Bella?"

"Does this count as sexual harassment? I'm not sure it was covered by last month's training," Bella said, stuffing her notebook into her bag.

"Do I _look_ like a predator?" Angela demanded.

"We're reading your dissertation," Jacob reminded her. "We know what dark urges move you."

"Hello kettle," Angela joked, "you may call me pot."

"Jacob's not the one who took me to—" Bella paused, "—you know where." Bella was referring, of course, to the fact that Angela, not Jacob, had introduced her to Breaking Dawn. But Bella didn't exactly want to shout the name of a place like that out in the middle of a classroom.

Angela made an outraged noise, but catching sight of a student obviously waiting to talk to Bella, she opted to hold back her retort and nudged Bella's shoulder instead.

Turning, Bella stifled a groan as she recognized the student in question.

There was nothing _wrong_ with James, per se; he was just different. He always looked like he was just on the verge of falling asleep, his eyes drooping under heavy lids. He would never quite meet Bella's gaze when they talked, either. And the things he said—in a habitual monotone—were always a trifle off topic, a step or two out of sync with everyone else.

Yet he never did or said anything blatantly worrisome. And Bella knew what it was like to be different.

So she waved Jacob and Angela off and gave James her full attention. "Can I help you?" she asked, trying to sound as if she gave a damn, because she was committed to at least _pretending_ to be a good TA.

His eyes volleyed around her face. "Do you have office hours today?"

"I do every Wednesday," Bella confirmed, deigning not to add that her hours were clearly printed in the syllabus. Maybe he thought she'd cancelled her hours that day for some reason or—

"Now?"

Technically, Bella had an hour before she had to be at her desk. She needed to pick up some books at the library first. "I'll be there in an hour," she said.

"Not now?"

"No, in an hour." And then, because James was making her feel defensive, she added. "That's when my office hours are scheduled to start."

"It would be more convenient if they were right after lecture."

Bella blinked. "You can make an appointment for a different time if you need to." She refrained from mentioning that this little tip was also included in the syllabus. "But not right now. I have something to do right now." It was none of James' business that she was just going to the library. She had a _right_ to take care of something that she needed to get done for herself.

Bella waited.

James swayed on his feet.

"Do you want to make an appointment?" she asked.

"No," James said. "That's ok."

"Ok," Bella said, and waited again.

But James just kept staring at her under those heavy lids of his.

They were about the same height—Bella was 5'8—and James wasn't exactly muscular. He _was_ blocking her exit, but they were in a crowded building and the next class was already filing into the room.

So Bella wasn't exactly uncomfortable.

Still, James _was_ strange. There was no denying that.

"I'll see you later then," Bella said, stepping around James to exit the room and rush off to the library.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Bella was always rushing. Rushing here, rushing there. For once, Bella just wished she could take her time.

Especially in the library. She wanted to enjoy the freedom of just wandering down the aisles at her leisure, looking at books at random. _But there was never any time for that, was there?_

She shelved books at the library part-time, which helped to compensate for the fact that she didn't get to spend as much time there as she wanted to, but it was something of an inconvenience having to shuttle back and forth between class and all of her odd jobs.

She tried to pick up her check after her whirlwind raid of the stacks that morning, but it wasn't ready. And now Bella was back in the history building, hurrying up the stairs. Bella never took the elevator, not unless she had to. She didn't trust that rickety contraption. But the library books in Bella's backpack seemed to be weighing her down more than usual. And Bella was still feeling the aftereffects of her late night at the data entry center.

In fact, she was feeling more and more tired lately—

She was thinking about leaving a note on her desk, and taking a nap in the grad student lounge. If anyone needed her, they could just come and get her. But in the meantime, she could catch up on much needed rest.

Unfortunately, she found James already sitting in the chair by her desk.

Resolved to get rid of him as fast as possible, Bella greeted him as she dropped her backpack and took a seat. "So what can I do for you?" She tried not to let any of her weariness show in her voice.

"You've got a plant," James pointed out, in the same strange monotone that he always used.

Bella glanced at the philodendron in the corner of her desk.

"No one else has a plant," he added.

She looked around the room—there were about twenty-five desks shoved pell-mell into the wide-open space, all of them belonging to grad students, most of whom had decorated their workspaces with picture frames. Jacob, who was currently eating at his desk, had sports memorabilia.

Instead of pictures or memorabilia, Bella had a philodendron. She was a rebel alright.

"Why do you have a plant?" James asked.

"No reason," she said, trying to decide who was stranger, James for asking why she had a plant or her for not immediately knowing why she had one. She just liked plants. And she didn't really want to look at pictures of her family, did she?

"Your desk is covered in wrapping paper," James observed then.

"Yes. Yes it is." Bella glanced down ruefully at the brown shipping paper in which she'd covered the top of her desk. She supposed it _was_ weird that she'd cover her desk in wrapping paper, but she had a perfectly good explanation.

"Why?"

"These desks are so dirty," Bella explained. "It's no use trying to get them clean. So I cover them instead." Bella covered her desk in wrapping paper at the start of every year. Usually, she chose a pleasant pattern, a warm green with black vines and flowers, or a royal blue. This year, though, she'd chosen a drab brown. Utilitarian. Cheap. Dreary.

"You write on the wrapping paper," James pointed out, the monotone somehow conveying disappointment in Bella's penchant for defiling her workspace.

"It's just wrapping paper," Bella reminded him, feeling an odd wash of shame. The fact is, Bella felt guilty. Not for taking a pen to her desk, but for the fact that she _wrote_ on it, instead of _doodling_. Not that she was opposed to doodling, but Bella wasn't a doodler—she _wished_ that she was a doodler, the kind of person who could let her mind go like that. Instead, she made lists. Lists of all of the things she needed to do and all of the things that she'd forgotten to do and endless tallies of her expenses—what she hoped to have in the bank and what she'd have to spend it on. And for want of a blank sheet of paper, she'd occasionally scribble on her desk, the latter being conveniently covered in wrapping paper.

"No one else has wrapping paper on their desk."

Out of the corner of her eye, Bella saw Jacob stand up and walk over to a filing cabinet, his back shaking in silent laughter. He was clearly eavesdropping on her conversation with James. She was glad that at least _someone_ was enjoying it.

"So what can I do for you?" Bella asked, trying to get James back on track.

"Is there going to be a quiz today?" James asked. He was referring, of course, to Bella's plans for his discussion session later that afternoon.

"There's a quiz every week," Bella reminded him.

"Why? It's _discussion_. It's not a real class. The professor's not there."

"The quizzes are Dr. Eleazar's requirement," Bella explained.

"But it's _your_ discussion group. Can't you do what you want?"

"I work for _him_. It's not _my_ discussion group. I'm sure Dr. Eleazar would be happy to discuss his policy with you." Bella had no qualms about throwing her professor under the bus. She didn't like giving quizzes. She secretly agreed with James: Discussion should be for _talking_. Giving quizzes discriminated against people who were smart on their feet, but weren't necessarily good at taking written exams. And there were already enough tests in this class.

James continued to argue with her. "But you're the one who gives us our grade, so I think you're the one I need to be talking to."

Technically, Dr. Eleazar was in charge of the grading policy. In reality, he didn't give a damn what his TAs did as long as they didn't get him into trouble with the department. And the department didn't give a damn as long as it didn't get into trouble with the university. And the university didn't give a damn as long as it didn't get into trouble with the media. Consequently, most students were going to get a B, no matter what.

Bella took a deep breath. "Is there something in particular that you're worried about for today's quiz?"

James fidgeted. "Well, what's going to be on it?"

"The reading. Did you do the reading?"

"Yeah. It was really long though."

It was forty pages.

"And I don't remember all of the names," he continued. "They were hard to spell."

Bella reminded James that she didn't deduct points for spelling.

James didn't seem very reassured. "Oh. Well, still I'm not sure what's going to be on the quiz, so I couldn't really study."

"Well, did you have any questions about the reading?"

"It was confusing."

"What confused you?"

"Just the whole thing."

Bella heard Jacob snort from across the room. On more than one occasion, Jacob had accused Bella of being too easy on her students.

Ignoring Jacob, Bella said, "We know that this material's new for everyone. We expect some confusion. Maybe you could just summarize what you read and we could talk about it."

Bella waited.

James kept looking at her.

She tried to give him a little encouragement. "I mean, _right now_. You could summarize it for me, right now, and I could tell you if you were on the right track or not."

"I don't want to waste your time," James said.

A burst of laughter rang out from the direction of Jacob's desk.

Bella stifled an impulse to tell Jacob to shut the fuck up and focused on James. "These are my office hours and it's my job to help you. You're not wasting my time."

"What kind of questions are going to be on the quiz?"

Bella knew damn well that James knew what kind of questions were going to be on the quiz. She answered nevertheless. "Dates, names, events. If you don't know an answer, guess. Most of it's multiple choice."

"Is it going to be hard?"

Bella heard another laugh join in with Jacob's. Angela had clearly just walked in.

Hoping that James didn't realize that the laughter was at his expense, Bella tried to reassure him. "There won't be any trick questions," she promised. "We're just trying to get evidence that you did the reading." It sounded vulgar when put like that. But it was true.

"That sounds easy."

"Yes. Easy." Bella felt relieved.

But James just kept sitting there.

"Was there something else you needed?" Bella asked.

"No."

But he didn't move.

"Well, if there's nothing else, I'm going to get lunch," Bella said.

"During your office hours?"

"I'm just going to get my lunch out of the refrigerator," Bella explained, feeling strangely defensive. I'm going to eat at my desk." Why was she explaining herself to him?

James blinked back at her.

"So I'll see you," Bella said, trying to get rid of him.

"Ok," James said, bending over to grab his bag.

Relieved that he appeared to have taken the hint, Bella left him there and went down the hall to grab her cheese sandwich. There was still time for her to take a nap. She just had to leave a note on her desk.

But James was still sitting there when she returned.

"Did you have another question?" Bella asked.

"I'm looking at my notes," James told her.

"Ok," Bella said. But what she thought was: _What the fuck?_

It wasn't like she could tell him to leave. After all, it _was_ her office hours. Maybe he would come across a question for her while looking at her notes.

But he just sat there, studying—or, whatever.

A couple of times, Bella glanced up at James to find him staring back at her.

"You doing ok there?" she'd ask and he'd nod, then go back to his reading.

"Aren't you going to get lunch?" she asked at one point.

"I had a big breakfast," he said.

So she went back to her own reading, resisting the urge to put her head down on the desk and just go to sleep, and resolutely ignoring Angela and Jacob, who were making obscene gestures on the other end of the room.

When it was finally time to leave for discussion, Bella eyed James.

"You coming?" she asked, because what the hell was she supposed to do? They were going to the same place. There was no reason why they shouldn't walk together. But it was weird. _James_ was weird.

He nodded, and shouldered his backpack.

Bella paused, waiting for him so that they could go down the stairs together, but for some reason, he stopped just behind her, as if walking next to her would make him uncomfortable.

She set off down the stairs, glancing back at him every few steps, but he continued to hang back, two steps behind her, all the way down. It was four flights.

"Sorry, I never take the elevator," Bella said, trying to make conversation, but he didn't answer.

And once outside, Bella paused again, waiting for James to catch up. But once again, he stopped just behind her, clearly unwilling to walk beside her.

Giving up, Bella set out across the quad, and James remained a full two steps behind her the entire way.

Midway, Bella opened her mouth to tell James to catch the fuck up with her already, but shut it again, because pointing out that he was being weird seemed much worse than pretending that it wasn't happening.

James followed her across the quad, into the yellow brick building where the discussion section met, up two more flights of stairs, down a hall, and finally through the door of the classroom.

By this point, Bella's nerves were definitely on edge.

But she set about logging into the computer, trying to put James' odd behavior out of her head. She remembered what it was like to be awkward and young. And though many of Bella's students were shockingly clever, and some of them were fucking giants, Bella had come to look upon them, by and large, as a collection of fluffy bunnies. She felt protective of them. Even the ones like James.

Then, as Bella reached for her bag to start class, she realized that she'd forgotten her notes for the day's discussion, including the quiz questions.

Naturally, she blamed her oversight on James' distracting behavior. There was no point in crying over spilled milk though.

"Sorry, I've forgotten the quiz," she announced. "But good news, I remember all of the questions." Bella laughed at her own joke.

Her students didn't appear to think it was funny. They were all sitting there, gazing at her morosely, not even a faint grin in sight.

"You know, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to take the quiz," she said, explaining her joke.

And they kept on looking at her, mirror images of James, who was sitting in the front row, staring at her with the same heavy-lidded, dull-witted look that he always had.

 _Fuckers_.

Ok, so her students weren't always fluffy bunnies, and her joke wasn't funny, but couldn't they just throw her a bone?

 _Apparently not_. Fifty minutes, the fall of the Roman Republic, and one emotionally castrated poet later, Bella was convinced that not one of her students would give a shit if the American democracy suddenly fell and they all had to settle for writing sonnets.

And not one of them was impressed by her ability to run the discussion _sans_ notes, either. She'd had to drag discussion points out of them, one word at a time.

It was fucking torture.

She knew it wasn't her fault (at least not entirely). She'd used the same lesson plan earlier that week to rousing success.

Consoled by the knowledge that her students would probably be forced to live with their parents after they graduated, Bella went back to the library after class to pick up her check.

Fortunately, it was ready.

Unfortunately, when her supervisor handed it to her, it was with a disgustingly hopeful expression. He said, "Siobhan called in sick, and we've got all these carts waiting to be shelved."

Bella glanced at the carts and caught a glimpse of a title: _Sewer System Maintenance in Fifteenth Century Italy_.

 _Because someone is probably up on the third floor right now looking for that one,_ Bella thought unkindly. But she needed the money. So she stayed.

And, exhausted though she was, she scanned the bulletin board on her way out, and pulled the numbers off of a few flyers for more odd jobs.

Bella was more than qualified to walk dogs and to tutor the typical disaffected youth. She didn't really have the time, but again, she needed the money.

Especially now that she'd officially backed out of the agreement with her fairy godmother.

Bella had yet to actually tell her fairy godmother the bad news. The last time Bella had suggested backing out, Tanya had exploded with rage.

So Bella had decided to treat Tanya the same way she was treating the Cullens. Bella would ignore both of them until they went away.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

The next day, Bella woke up determined. She would have a good day. She deserved it.

It was her birthday.

She didn't have class and she wasn't scheduled to work. And for the first time in weeks, she was going to get to see her father.

If Bella had her way, she'd get to see her father every day. She was just so busy with work and school—

At least, that's what she told herself. The truth was, she hated seeing her father in that hospital bed.

"He's been sleeping most of the time," the nurse said when Bella checked in at the desk.

Bella despised herself for feeling a rush of relief at hearing that. It meant that her father wasn't aware of just how much she'd been ignoring him—which was a good thing—but it was only because he was still struggling with his latest bout of pneumonia.

Steeling her nerves, Bella made her way into her father's room with a cheery smile plastered to her lips.

But he was asleep. She pretended not to notice the tubes running every which way and all of the machines, beeping and humming. It made Bella positively sick to see her father looking so frail.

"I'm going to be done with my dissertation soon," she told him in a low tone, telling him all about her classes as he slept.

Bella knew he'd be angry if he knew that she was sitting in his hospital room on her birthday. He'd been in surgery the last time her birthday rolled around, and he was furious when he found out that she'd spent the whole day in the waiting room. He made her promise she'd never do something like that again.

This wasn't the same thing—but still.

It felt wrong to just leave him there when she had the whole day to herself. Yet she knew that her father would be annoyed with her for sitting there.

She was torn—knowing that she'd feel guilty either way.

The decision was taken out of Bella's hands when a nurse entered.

"Oh dear, I'm sorry, but your father has several tests scheduled for this afternoon."

And there it was again—the rush of relief. Bella felt like crap. _What kind of a daughter is grateful not to have to sit by her sick father's bedside?_

Standing, Bella bid her father an awkward farewell. "Well, dad, I'll come back soon, alright?"

"You can touch him, dear, you won't hurt him," the nurse said. "Don't let those tubes frighten you."

A wash of shame came over Bella then. _What kind of a daughter doesn't want to hold her sick father's hand?_ she thought. But they'd never been the touchy-feely type.

Bella forced herself to pat his hand, hating herself for having to force herself to do so, and hating the sensation of his cold skin—like a corpse—and she hurried out of the room and on out of the hospital.

 _What a heartless bitch_ , she thought.

Why couldn't she just give him a kiss on the forehead?

After all, he'd never looked that bad before. What if it was the last time she ever saw him?

The realization that she might very well never see her father again didn't hit Bella until she was outside the hospital, on the sidewalk. It was like a wall of bricks.

He'd been sick before, and he'd always gotten over it.

He'd get over it this time too.

Or so she told herself.

It wasn't fair. It was her fucking birthday.

Didn't she deserve a good day? Just one good day?

She worked every other day of the week, every week of the year.

If she wasn't working at the library or the data entry center or the school, then she was studying or doing research for her dissertation. And she was tired.

She was so fucking tired of working.

It was hard being a good TA. She wasn't naturally outgoing—not the way a good teacher was. She had to work at it. Teaching was a performance. The audience—the students—had to work with her, but sometimes even her best students didn't want to. Some days, everything went wrong.

Like the day before with James, when she forgot the quiz and all of her notes and the class just sat there looking at her like she was a bug under a microscope.

Sometimes, Bella felt like she was being scraped clean, like there was just going to be nothing left when it was all done.

It wasn't just the TAing. Working at the library and the data entry center didn't require much mental effort, but in some ways, it was all the more awful for that.

And despite all of her hard work, Bella still hadn't saved nearly enough money for that new treatment that she wanted her father to get.

A good daughter would've done anything to pay for that treatment. A good daughter wouldn't have backed out of that plan with the Cullens.

But it wasn't Bella's fault that her father was sick. These things happened.

And that scheme with the Cullens was ludicrous. Bella never would've been able to pull it off.

Not to mention the fact that her father would have blown a—

A gasket, as he would have said.

He would have blown a gasket if he'd known how she was hoping to get the money for his treatment.

He would've refused to take the money.

She still hadn't used his present from last Christmas. He'd asked a nurse to pick up a gift certificate for Bella. It wasn't redeemable for cash, but it was good at several local shops.

 _I deserve this_ , Bella thought, willing the tears away. _I deserve this._

So she made herself take a bus to a used bookshop where she could use the gift certificate.

And for a while, as Bella inspected the shelves, she managed to forget about her father's recent setback. Scanning book titles and keeping a watch out for other customers who might want to deprive her of some rare find, Bella forgot all of her problems for a few minutes. She forgot about her horrible roommate. She forgot about how Dr. Volturri was stonewalling her about her dissertation. She forgot about her bratty little students and her petulant coworkers and all of the tiny irritations that

But then she caught sight of Hallett's _Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society_.

And Bella remembered.

How could she be so selfish?

She wanted just one good day for herself. Meanwhile, her father was _dying_. Every day for him right now was the worst day of his life. And here she was, _spoiling_ herself.

Then, as if she wasn't already feeling awful enough, Edward showed up.

He just traipsed in and proceeded to push all of her buttons, one after the other, purely for his own pleasure, following her all over the bookshop and harassing her every step of the way.

She just didn't understand him.

But Bella refused to lose her temper. _I deserve this_ , she told herself. Putting up with Edward would be her penance for all of the lies she'd told him and Alice.

So Bella let him follow her around. She even agreed to have dinner with him.

But she had something else to do first.

Having paid for her books, she headed up the stairs to the sex shop.

"Where're you going?" Edward asked behind her.

She squinted down at him. "Upstairs."

"Here?"

"Yeah. Here." And she continued on up.

Making her way inside of the shop, Bella went straight to the counter.

"Wait," Edward said as he caught up with her. "You're here for a _tattoo_?"

Observing his tone of dismay, Bella resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Yes, a _tattoo_."

"What the fuck for?"

"Because I want one."

Edward burst out laughing.

"Fuck you," she hissed. It was her _birthday,_ goddammit, not that Edward knew that _._

Studying the designs, she resolved to pretend that Edward wasn't even there.

"Is this part of some early onset midlife crisis?" Edward asked.

"I don't know Masen. Is that little _bar_ of yours part of some midlife crisis?" Bella had figured out enough by now to know that Edward didn't want his relationship with Breaking Dawn broadcast to the world. And she wasn't above using that knowledge to get him off of her back.

"I _belong_ at that little _bar_ of mine. _This_ ," he gestured at the tattoo designs, "is just you trying to work out some juvenile fantasy."

" _This_ ," Bella clarified, "has nothing to do with you. And you know nothing about me."

"Fine," Edward seemed to relent. "Mutilate yourself for all I care. At least I can make sure they use clean needles on you."

"Don't accuse the waiter of spitting in your food before he's even served you," Bella snapped.

Edward shrugged, eyeing the designs on the wall. "At least get something normal like a flower or a ladybug."

"Made up your mind, beautiful?" a voice asked.

A heavily tattooed employee had joined them by the counter.

Caught off guard by the compliment, Bella fumbled for words.

"She's still deciding," Edward answered for her, sounding a little annoyed. "But I've got my eye on one of these designs." He gestured to the framed designs on one of the walls. "Any advice?"

"What are you doing?" Bella demanded.

"Do you mind? I'm trying to have a conversation. Pick your design already."

Bella glowered at Edward, wondering what he was up to. But he ignored her, motioning for the tattoo artist, who introduced himself as Eric, to join him at the far end of the counter. The two of them huddled in front of busty anime characters and started murmuring.

Unable to hear what they were saying, an irritated Bella turned back to study the tattoo designs. She wanted something that reminded her of her father.

The first thing that came to mind when she thought of her father was his job. He had been a police officer. But she didn't want a tattoo of a gun or handcuffs or anything like that.

Her father liked to fish, and Bella saw several designs for koi and even a trout. But that didn't seem right.

Then she saw the trident.

"Made up your mind yet?" Edward mocked. "Or trying to think up a way to get out of it?"

"I've made up mind," she snapped.

"Alright then, which one is it?"

"This one." She pointed the design out.

Eric whistled. "That's gonna look sexy, beautiful."

" _Right_ ," Edward said sarcastically.

Bella resisted the urge to deck him.

"How much does it cost?" Edward asked.

"Masen!" Bella interrupted. What the hell was his problem anyway?

"What? I'm just looking out for your interests."

Eric interceded. "First tattoo?"

Bella nodded, pretending she couldn't hear Edward snickering next to her.

"Price depends on the size and where you want it," Eric explained.

"You could get it tattooed over your heart. Right on your breast," Edward suggested.

"No!" Bella nipped that idea in the bud.

"What about a tramp stamp?"

"Masen!"

"What?"

"Fucking stop already. Give me a chance to think."

Edward cocked an eyebrow. "By all means, please _think_ about what you're doing."

Bella wanted it somewhere that she could see it. But she didn't want it out in the open. Lowering the top of her skirt a couple of inches, she exposing her left hip. "Right here." She held up her fingers about two inches apart. "And about that big."

"Sounds good. Just the black ink?"

"Yes please."

"So how much," Edward interrupted.

"Seventy-five dollars," Eric replied.

"Only seventy-five?" Bella asked.

"What do you mean 'only seventy-five'?" Edward sounded shocked. "That's a rip off."

"It's a fair price," Eric defended himself.

"This is premium virgin flesh you'll be marking up here." Edward gestured at Bella. "You should be paying _her_."

 _That makes no sense,_ Bella thought.

"Fifty," Eric haggled.

 _What?_ Bella tried to interrupt.

"Deal," Edward decided.

 _What the hell?_ Bella wondered.

"I have to make up a tracing of this, and then we'll get started," Eric explained.

"Ok," Bella said, figuring she ought to say something.

"Go on back." Eric waved a hand towards the curtain. "You want your friend to come with you?"

 _That's right,_ Bella thought, noting the look of surprise on Edward's face as he realized that he might not get to come along. She hitched a shoulder. "Whatever." _Because he doesn't rile me up at all_ , Bella told herself. "I mean, he doesn't matter," Bella added.

Edward snorted.

"You don't," she told him.

He muttered something under his breath, but followed her obediently through the curtain.

There were no other customers in the back of the shop. Reclining chairs were set up at odd intervals, with mirrors covering the ceiling and one entire wall.

"Have a seat," Eric said as he came in and started pulling out instruments.

Bella settled into a chair, and told herself to get it together. She didn't know what the hell had just happened, but this was _her_ birthday.

 _You're just not feeling like yourself_ , Bella thought as she pulled down the top of her skirt. _What with your father and seeing Edward again_.

She was out of sorts, that was all.

But she was feeling better now.

And Bella was resolutely ignoring the fact that Edward had taken the seat next to her, and was watching closely as Eric prepared to shave the patch of skin on Bella's hip.

"You two been dating long?" Eric inquired, running the razor down Bella's skin.

Bella jerked with surprise, and was oh so grateful that Eric somehow managed not to nick her.

"We're not dating," Edward explained quietly.

Eric laughed. "So why's he here?" he asked Bella.

"Because I _hate_ him," Bella hissed, unable to restrain herself.

But Edward just laughed.

Eric shrugged it off. "Fine with me," he said with a smirk.

 _At least my suffering is a source of entertainment to others,_ Bella thought ruefully.

Eric applied the stencil and she approved the placement. Then Eric reclined the chair so that Bella was almost lying down.

It was an uncomfortable sensation, lying back like that with two men looking down at her. But Bella attempted to appear unfazed as Eric loaded ink into the tattoo gun.

"Want to hold my hand?" Edward offered.

"Screw you," Bella retorted, grateful for the excuse to snap at him. "And stop watching me. Perv."

"What else am I supposed to be doing?"

"If you're bored, why don't you leave?"

"Because you don't want me to be here. Your misery is my delight."  
"So if I begged you to stay, you'd go?"

"Try and find out," Edward taunted.

Bella knew that there was no way of getting rid of him. She knew his eyes were on her face as the sting of the needle first hit her, and she was determined not to let him see how much it hurt.

"So why're you really getting a tattoo," Edward inquired. "Have you got a thing for pain?"

"I'm not like you Masen." Bella said, trying not to wince as the sting of the needle turned into a dull grinding pain. "I don't have to stoop to fetishes to derive pleasure out of life."

"Why get a tattoo if you don't like pain?" he asked, repeating the question as his eyes drifting from her face to her hip.

"See something you like?" Bella asked, uncomfortable with his stare and trying to avoid the question.

"Maybe, if I was the one with the gun."

"Pervert."

"Really? Let's ask Eric what he thinks."

"He's busy!" Bella glanced at Eric's face. But if he was bothered by their banter, he didn't let on, smiling placidly as he worked.

"Don't be a hypocrite, Swan," Edward warned. "A woman who's into pain shouldn't be so judgmental."

"I'm not _into_ pain. And I'm not judgmental."

"Why get a tattoo then, if you're not _into_ pain?"

"Because I _want_ one," Bella explained. "It hasn't got anything to do with the pain."

"Then you're not doing it right."

"What's the difference?"

Edward snorted. "Between pain and pleasure?"

"No, between pain and pleasure or the alternative. Because whether it's pain or pleasure, they're both just sensations. One or the other. They might as well be the same. Like water so hot it feels cold. It's pointless, don't you think?"

"Pointless?"

"Sex. With you. It sounds boring."

Bella was proud of her little quip until she heard Eric choking. Glancing down, she saw that he was alright—and more importantly, her tattoo was alright. But she regretted her words. This was neither the time nor the place for a conversation like this.

"Sex with me is _not_ boring," Edward declared.

Bella's temper flared again. "Whatever. It sounds monotonous."

"If sex is boring, then you're not doing it right."

"Humans have been having sex for 1.7 million years. It's not as if you'll invent something new."

"Oh ye of little faith. Stop trying to change the subject."

"I'm not changing the subject," Bella lied.

"Bullshit," Edward replied. "Alright, if you're not into pain, then maybe the tattoo is penance. Why do you feel like you deserve to suffer?"

Holding back a gasp, Bella answered. "I don't think I deserve to suffer."

"Then why get a tattoo?"

"It's a reminder."

"A reminder of what?"

She put her chin up. "That's none of your business." She wouldn't tell Edward. It wasn't his to know.

"We'll see about that," Edward said. He pulled out his phone.

"What're you doing?"

"You're not that deep, my dear. I'll have that design figured out before the night's through."

Bella cocked her head in dismissal. "Good luck with that."

"Is it a tuning fork?" Edward asked, glancing up from his phone.

"No."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes."

"But maybe you have a crush on a composer. Mozart or somebody."

"Mozart's dead," Bella reminded him.

"And?"

"No."

Edward glanced down at his phone again. "Is it a shrimp fork?"

"No."

Edward offered up several more guesses as Eric finished up the tattoo, but they were all wrong.

For his part, Eric had remained silent throughout the exchange, evidently enjoying the banter.

"All done," he announced as he wiped Bella's skin one last time.

Edward commented under his breath as Eric applied the bandage, and then questioned Eric carefully about the aftercare instructions.

"It's _my_ tattoo," Bella reminded him. Her hip hurt, but not as much as she had feared it would.

"I'm a doctor," Edward said, as if that explained everything.

"He's a dick," Bella said to Eric, by way of apology.

Edward refrained from defending himself, holding his tongue until they were on their way out to the register.

"Since we're here," he said, "don't you want to look around? It's a sex shop after all. They cater to all sorts of fetishes. They'll even have something for you. Come on. It'll be my treat."

Ignoring him, Bella pulled out some cash and the gift certificate, which had been marked up to reflect what was left after her purchase at the book shop. But before she could pay, Edward dropped his credit card on the counter.

"What's that for?" she asked suspiciously.

"Oh, just something I need. Don't worry about it. I wouldn't want to sully your innocent little mind with the details."

Afraid that Edward was somehow pulling a fast one, but unwilling to press the issue, Bella didn't question him any further.

Once they were out of the shop and back out on the street, however, Bella made one last bid to get out of dinner.

"You don't have to take me out to eat," she said.

"But I do, remember? It was our deal."

"I didn't mean it, though."

"You lied?" Edward sounded offended.

"Of course." Bella had no intention of having dinner with Edward. _To hell with penance._ She didn't owe Edward anything.

But then, to Bella's dismay as she turned to go, Edward deftly snatched her bag of newly purchased books out of her hand.

"What're you doing?" Bella asked, reaching for the bag.

"Not so fast," he said, moving the bag out of her reach. "I'll give them to you after dinner."

"They're not yours," Bella protested.

"But they're my insurance."

"Insurance?"

"I want to make sure you behave."

 **AN:**

 **My apologies for the delay in posting and for not replying to reviews. I will do so ASAP.**

 **And my apologies for splitting a single day over four chapters.**

 **And, finally, my apologies if you hated this chapter. I'm struggling to make this story seem less stiff and formal, but it's not really working.**

 **References:**

' **Fuck you, boys, up the butt and in the mouth…You size me up, on the basis of my poems, because they're a little sexy, as not really decent. A poet has to live clean—but not his poems.' – Catullus Poem 16 translated by Micaela Wakil Janan – according to Wikipedia, the first line has been called "'one of the filthiest expressions ever written in Latin—or in any other language.'" (Harry Mount "Mark Lowe Is Right: The Romans Said It Better,"** _ **Telegraph**_ **25Nov2009)**

 **I hope it was clear that Clodia Pulcher (a female aristocrat) was supposedly the lover of both the poet Catullus and the dictator Julius Caesar, and that the latter was supposedly also the lover of the king of Nicomedia.**

 **Some scholars do indeed suggest that changing sexual mores are related to the fall of the Republic. According to this theory, men like Catullus became more sexually submissive in response to their declining access to political/social power (or vice versa). After the Republic fell, poetry continued to be filled with images of sexual penetration—a reflection, supposedly, of the political/social passivity men were forced to accept (see, for instance, Martial).**

 **It's an old story, but it's how I feel right now – Rec:** _Catwoman_ by counselor Life is boring but good. He buys the house across the street. Too many cats spoil his backyard. McCarty tells him they belong to the cat woman. He's a little thrown when he meets her. But he won't back down. And neither will she. Twilight - Rated: M - English - Romance - Chapters: 55 - Words: 142,594 - Reviews: 1095 - Favs: 500 - Follows: 235 - Updated: Feb 24, 2012 - Published: Nov 10, 2011 - Bella, Edward - Complete


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

' _I'll tell you what, if you are a good girl, my little pork cuntlet, I'll buy your freedom and keep you as my concubine._ ' — Aristophanes, translator unknown (and no, that's not a typo, it's "cu **n** tlet")

Chapter 9

Bella's eyes were blazing. "Don't threaten my books Masen."

"Behave," Edward admonished.

"I thought you wanted me out of control," Bella snapped, recalling how Edward had said just that, only a few weeks ago.

 _"You don't want to see me_ out _of control, Masen,"_ Bella had said.

 _"Oh no? Why not?"_ Edward had asked, smirking, like it was joke.

 _"What on earth could you possibly have to gain from it?"_

 _"It's not what_ I _would gain,"_ Edward had said.

Meaning it was what _she_ would gain. Like it would be a motherfucking _gift_ to her.

"They're just books," Edward laughed now. He couldn't help the laughter, even though he knew it was probably pissing her off. But the way she was glaring at him, with her hands on her hips as they faced-off on the sidewalk, was just too surreal. Who would've thought that he'd spend the afternoon with Bella, buying books and watching her ink up her flesh?

"I'm not surprised that someone like you thinks you can do whatever you want," Bella complained.

Edward's smile disappeared. "Someone like me?"

"You know what I mean. You always got whatever you wanted. Handed to you on a silver platter."

That was bullshit. "I earned every single thing I was ever given," Edward told her.

Now Bella was laughing. "Like that car you got when you were sixteen?"

Edward's eyes narrowed. "I _earned_ that car." And he _had_ earned it—going to six months of useless therapy and then going out of his way to prove to Carlisle and Esme how very perfectly "adjusted" he was.

"Right."

Edward's tone lightened. "Besides, here I am, taking you to dinner, and you can't even show a little gratitude."

Bella put a hand to her throat. "Oh," her voice took on a sickly sweet saccharine tone, "Mr. Cullen sir, I am so _very_ humbled by your generosity and kindness. How _ever_ well I repay you?"

"By behaving." Edward just couldn't help it—every time he was around her, it was like he was still fifteen years old, acting like a jackass.

Bella dropped the accent. "I don't see why you're bothering."

"You amuse me." And it was true—Edward had no idea why she amused him so much, but it was true.

"Well, gee, aren't I lucky."

Edward gestured down the sidewalk. "After you."

"Where are we going?" Bella asked, turning tentatively in the direction Edward indicated.

"Breaking Dawn."

Bella froze.

"I thought you liked it there," Edward said.

"You said _dinner_."

"There's a French place I like a couple of blocks down." He'd been joking about Breaking Dawn.

"Hmm." Bella condescended to join Edward in setting off down the street.

"You _do_ like French, don't you?" Edward confirmed.

"Not really."

"What?"

"It's kind of bland," Bella observed.

"It's the finest cuisine in the world."

"If you say so."

"What a snob," Edward commented as they crossed the street.

"How am I a snob?" Bella thought that was ludicrous. _You can't be a snob if you don't have anything to your name._

"You're impossible to impress." Edward was still pissed off about the night that he'd taken Bella and Alice sightseeing. "You hated the Space Needle, and you just walked out of the lounge."

"I didn't _hate_ the Space Needle," Bella said, leaving out the fact that it was the company she'd hated. "And the music in that _lounge_ was so loud that I couldn't even hear myself think."

"Less thinking would be good for you. And the lounge isn't exactly easy to get into."

"I figured that. It was clear that people went there just to be seen."

"You _are_ a snob. Where should I have taken you instead? A library?"

"As if." The idea that a man, any man, would take her to a library was— _Good God—_ it was unexpectedly _charming._ And the notion that Edward could come up with an idea like that just pissed Bella off.

"I never even had a chance," Edward said.

"You didn't try," Bella replied, uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. It wasn't as if the night he took her sightseeing was a date.

"What would it take to impress you then?" Edward wasn't sure why he was asking—he certainly didn't care about the answer—but it was as if someone else had been calling the shots all afternoon. Why else would Edward have gone into that bookshop to pester Bella, and then invite her to dinner? Why else would Edward have talked the tattoo artist into secretly letting Edward cover most of the cost for her tattoo, so that she could get whatever design she wanted?

Bella was just as confused as Edward about just what was going on. Why wasn't she just demanding her books and walking away?

It was like she was fourteen again. She _wanted_ to fight with him. She _wanted_ to get the better of him, even though she knew it was an exercise in futility.

And now, for some reason, she found herself wanting to answer him truthfully. She thought about it. "Show me a flower where no flower should be able to grow," she said. "A display of uncalculated kindness. I'm impressed by self-effacement in any form." And hearing the formality of her language, Bella realized that she deserved to be called a snob. But she knew that formality was just a form of self-defense—and Edward did the same damn thing, stiff and proper language just a cover for their sordid, uncouth upbringing. At least Bella had the self-awareness to recognize it. Edward probably didn't even realize he was doing it.

For his part, Edward was too surprised by Bella's answer to really pay attention to anything else. Her words sounded honest. And ridiculous. And insulting. "You don't think I'm capable of modesty?"

"Don't despair over your faults. Acknowledge and move on."

Unable to think of a comeback, Edward was grateful that they'd reached the restaurant. "This is it."

Bella reached for the door handle but Edward beat her to it, only to be rewarded with a glare as he held the door open for her to pass through.

"Here I am trying to perform an act of uncalculated kindness," he protested. "And you won't let me."

Chin held high, Bella entered the restaurant. "I got to the door first."

"So?" Edward asked as followed her inside.

"I despise inefficiency."

"No price can be placed on courtesy."

Bella didn't respond.

Edward was disappointed by her silence. "What? No biting witticism?"

"I'm thinking. I'll have one soon." But Bella was taking in the other diners, and was feeling very self-conscious at the sight of what looked like their designer threads. Her outfit wasn't bad, but it was thrift shop chic. Edward was dressed casually, in a button down shirt and blue jeans, but Bella was sure that his clothes didn't come from a thrift shop.

If they were dressed inappropriately, the hostess didn't let on. She showed them to a table by the window.

Bella glared at Edward again when he pulled out her chair, but she sat down, not wanting to cause a scene.

"Get whatever you want," Edward told her, after the hostess left them with menus. "I invited you, so it's on me."

But that didn't make Bella feel any less self-conscious. The cheapest appetizer on the menu was fifteen dollars. She wondered what kind of a game Edward was playing, taking her to a place like this. Part of her wondered if he was purposely trying to humiliate her.

 _So what if he is?_ Bella wondered. She was here, and she figured she might as well enjoy it. So when the waiter came to take their drink order, she asked for the most expensive wine on the menu.

Edward just smiled.

"ID please," the waiter said.

"What?" Bella asked. She didn't look _that_ young. And she was surprised that a restaurant like this would bother carding.

"Show him your ID already," Edward chided. "I don't want anyone thinking that I'm corrupting the youth."

Bella rolled her eyes and passed her ID over.

"Happy birthday," the waiter said, returning her license before leaving the table.

"It's your birthday?" Edward asked, remembering how Alice used to make Bella a cake every year and take it to Bella's to celebrate. Edward couldn't remember if it was in spring or fall.

Bella shrugged.

"Why didn't you say so?" he complained.

"Why would I?"

"I would have gotten you a present."

"You're buying me dinner," Bella reminded him.

" _Another_ present. Something from the sex shop, maybe."

"No thank you."

"So very prim and proper." Assuming a prim and proper voice himself, Edward asked "Shall I translate the entrees on the menu for you?"

"I can read French."

"Of course you can."

The waiter returned with their wine, and poured a small glass for Bella's approval. "I'm sure it's fine," she told him, uncomfortable with the attention, and with the waiter's deferent attitude. But the waiter and Edward were watching her expectantly, so she quickly sipped the drink. She wasn't used to drinking wine, and it was bitter, but she nodded and said that it was indeed quite fine, feeling more and more like an idiot.

"This isn't so bad, is it?" Edward asked after the waiter had taken the rest of their orders and left. "The two of us, sitting here, together. So very civilized."

"I'm always civilized," Bella said.

Edward snorted.

"What?" Bella asked.

"You like to fling a little mud, for someone so _civilized."_

"You started it," Bella replied petulantly.

"No, I'm pretty sure it was you. From the first day we met."

"In high school?"

Edward nodded.

"Bullshit," Bella retorted, careful to keep her tone down. They were seated well enough away from the other diners to speak without fear of anyone overhearing, but Bella felt a tinge of embarrassment, speaking so crassly in such an establishment.

"Oh come on, you know you started it."

"Absolutely not."

"Of course it was you," Edward insisted.

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Well, that's what happened." There was no way that Edward had started it all.

"That would have been completely out of my character." Bella refused to countenance the possibility that she—and not Edward—was responsible for starting their feud all of those years ago.

"Cause you were such a bundle of sunshine," Edward replied sarcastically.

"You were no daisy yourself."

Edward opened his mouth to continue arguing and stopped. "Agree to disagree?"

Bella shrugged.

"What do you want to talk about then?" Edward asked.

"Castration." Bella knew that she was being a bitch, but she couldn't help it. Edward just brought it out of her. And this was her birthday, goddammit.

"Are you on something?" Edward didn't understand why Bella was always like this. Here he was being nice, and she—

"Am _I_ on something? Of the two of us, I'm the one who, by definition, isn't _on_ anything. If either of us is _on_ something, it's you."

Edward shook his head. "I have no desire to dull _sensation_. Unlike you."

"Maybe sensation itself is what's dulling your mind."

Edward snorted again. "That doesn't make any sense. When did you decide to give up?"

"Give up?" Bella looked confused.

"When did you decide to say 'fuck it' to the white picket fence and everything else?"

"What makes you think that I have?"

"So you haven't?" Edward wanted to know.

"Why should I answer?" Bella didn't want to talk about this. The truth was, she'd long ago decided that she wasn't a white picket fence type. There'd be no perfect little family with a husband and 2.3 kids and a dog. But that wasn't any of Edward's business.

Alas, Edward disagreed. "Because refusing to answer my question is just as much an admission."

"I don't think so. Knowledge is power."

"So let's play a game," Edward said. "For every question of mine you answer, I'll answer one of yours."

"Why should I want to ask you any questions?" Bella asked warily.

"I'm a riveting subject. Didn't you say that one of your teachers was pushing you to advance your research in a particular area—an area in which I happen to hold a certain amount of expertise?"

Bella suddenly wished she'd never mentioned Dr. Volturri to Edward.

He leaned back. "Consider me your guide to all things hedonistic."

"And I'm just supposed to take your word for it that you're an expert?"

"Quiz me and find out."

Bella held her tongue, but Edward took her silence for acquiescence, and proceeded with his first question. "Have you ever seen a doctor about your _condition_?"

"My _condition_?" Bella was instantly suspicious.

"Anxiety," Edward said, as if it was obvious. "Social anxiety."

"I'm not anxious," Bella lied.

"I make you nervous."

"Screw you."

"Hold my hand," Edward dared, reaching said limb towards Bella.

"What? No," she pulled away.

"Scared?"

"I'm not going to hold hands with you." Bella thought that he was being a freak.

"You'll give me a lap dance but you won't hold my hand?"

Of course, the waiter chose just that moment to appear with their meals. Bella was mortified, Edward was unable to hold back his chuckles, and the waiter remained politely deferent, if slightly more judgmental.

"You don't like to be touched," Edward said, after the waiter left. "You never have. Not even in high school, I remember. It's clearly a symptom of anxiety. They have medication that can help with that now."

Bella didn't want to talk about this. "I know that it's in your interests to create work for the medical profession but I have no wish to be drugged into complacency."

"It's not about being drugged into complacency. It's why you should take pain reliever for a strained muscle—so that you don't hurt your other muscles while the injury's healing. It's about living as normal a life as possible. "

"So I'm not normal?" Bella was thoroughly annoyed. "Who gets to decide?"

"Evolution. Sex is a primal instinct. And so's food," he said, changing the subject. "How do you like your dish?"

Bella hmphed. "French food always has too much sauce. And the planet's overpopulated. My decision not to reproduce is my gift to humanity."

"That's no reason not to have sex. It's called contraception. And what do you mean you don't like the sauce?"

"Try it yourself."

He did. "It's delicious," he told her.

"And you call me a snob," Bella chided. "It's just fancy sauce ruining a perfectly good fish. What makes you think that I don't have sex?"

Now Edward looked confused. "I thought—"

"What?"

"Didn't you say that you were a virgin?"

"I'm quite certain that I never said any such thing to you." And Bella _hadn't_ , at least not in so many words. It was merely implied. And now that she wasn't going through with Tanya's plan, it was none of Edward's business if Bella was a virgin.

"So you aren't a virgin," Edward tried to clarify.

"I didn't say that either."

"So?"

"I already answered one of your questions. It's my turn," Bella said.

"What question?"

"Your question about going to a doctor. No, I have never sought out, nor do I ever intend to seek out, treatment for my so-called anxiety disorder. Do Alice and Emmett know about Breaking Dawn?

Edward coughed. "I don't think that a place like that is an appropriate topic of conversation for my sister."

"You're ashamed." It wasn't a question.

Edward clenched his jaw. "I've grown quite accustomed to the idea that my particular tastes aren't shared by many."

"But you _need_ people like Alice to look down on you, don't you? At least in your imagination. There'd be no thrill to deviance if everything was permissible."

Edward could see the logic in that. "I suppose you're right." He cleared his throat. "My turn again. What's the worst thing that ever happened to you?"

"No," Bella felt suddenly cold.

"No?"

"I won't answer." She didn't think he had the right to ask her a question like this.

"If it's Port-"

"It's not." _How dare he?_

"Ok. Your turn," Edward told her.

"There's nothing else I want to know about you." Bella was through with the game.

"Oh come now," he tried to lighten the mood. "How about the night I lost my virginity?"

"Sounds boring."

"If I'm so boring, I'll just stop talking."

"Good."

"You're not very nice."

"Exactly my point. We don't like each other very much. There's no reason for us to go on antagonizing one another. We should just avoid each other."

"But I was hoping you would—" Edward stopped. Taking a deep breath, he started again. "You should come to Alice's next happy hour."

Bella was taken aback. It made no sense for Edward to make a request like that. Trying to piss him off, she adopted a faux southern accent again. "Why Mr. Cullen, I do declare, are you trying to court me?"

Surprised by the turn in the conversation, Edward tried to joke his way out of it. "Maybe I just want to corrupt you," he retorted with a smirk.

"I'm incorruptible," Bella replied, feeling strangely off kilter and wishing she'd kept her damn mouth shut.

"You could take a chance," Edward said, even as he wondered what the hell he was really suggesting. "Become a hedonist, just for a little while."

"No." Bella tried to keep her voice firm. Their conversation was entering dangerous territory.

At that point, the waiter appeared again.

"Shall we have dessert?" Edward asked, grateful for the interruption. "It _is_ your birthday after all."

"Whatever you want."

Edward ordered two crèmes brûlées. Not a particularly sophisticated dish, but unbeknownst to him, one of Bella's favorites.

As soon as the waiter had left, Edward resumed the interrogation. "Fine, since you don't want to ask me any questions, I'll ask another. What have you done about your professor?"

"Which professor?" Bella asked, prevaricating. She knew damn well that he was talking about Dr. Volturri.

"The one who told you to go to Breaking Dawn." Edward didn't think it was entirely appropriate for professors to be ordering their students to do things like that.

"She's making me rewrite my dissertation proposal. Again."

"You should tell her that you've found someone to tutor you in corruption. I could write you a note."

Bella shook her head as the crèmes brûlées arrived.

"What's your dissertation on?" Edward asked, pretending he didn't catch the gleam in Bella's eyes when the dessert was served.

"You wouldn't be interested," Bella told him, tapping her spoon on the crust of her dessert. It gave her a perverse sort of joy to tap, tap, tap at it, before breaking into the creamy deliciousness.

"Tell me."

"It's kind of stupid, really."

"Tell me."

Bella considered lying. Or just refusing to answer. But what was the point? "Vnty," she mumbled.

Edward cocked his head to the side. "Sorry? What did you say?"

"Virginity." It was at times like this that Bella thought that her life really was a cosmic joke.

It took Edward a full five minutes to stop laughing.

At first, Bella tried to maintain her _holier than thou_ air but it was futile. By the time Edward had calmed down enough to speak, she was chuckling too. (She blamed the dessert for lightening her mood.)

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," he said.

Bella shrugged.

"I thought you studied Romans."

"The Greco-Romans," she corrected.

"You should write about Caligula instead," he recommended.

Bella rolled her eyes. "You're so fucking cliché."

"Come on."

"Suetonius says that Caligula would kiss his lover's neck and say, 'And this throat too will be cut whenever I please.'"

"Give a man that much power, you deserve what you get."

"So every man would be Caligula if he could?"

"Of course not, but it's a recipe for disaster giving someone that much control."

"You know he fucked his sister," Bella reminded him.

"I'm sure that everyone was fucking their family members back then."

"Uh, no they weren't," Bella said, giving Edward a strange look.

"Alice isn't actually my sister, you know," Edward reminded her.

"You're disgusting."

"Probably, but I didn't say that I'd have sex with her, you just assumed. What the hell does a dissertation on virginity have to do with Breaking Dawn?"

"It's not just on virginity. It's on abstinence in antiquity, and the pain of going without. Pain/sex. Ergo, Breaking Dawn. Or so my professor says."

"There are plenty of people who hang out there who aren't into BDSM," Edward told her.

"Ok." Bella didn't really want to get into that with Edward.

"But at least you're finally admitting that abstinence is torture."

Bella rolled her eyes. "I'm writing about temporary abstinence, too. Maybe your lover's gone away. There're the pangs of separation. Not to mention the agony of anticipation."

"That's the problem with monogamy."

"Bullshit. Without monogamy, people like you wouldn't be able to enjoy the perversion of promiscuity."

It was fitting that Bella should feel a twinge of pain from her tattoo just then. For the most part it was just uncomfortable, but it was still smarting a little every now and then.

Edward eyed her warily. "I have a theory, by the way, about your tattoo."

"I'm sure you do."

"You won't like it."

"I'm sure I won't."

"I _did_ warn you not to get anything phallic."

"What?" Bella tried to hide her horror—the trident was meant to represent her _father_ for God's sake. Her father loved to fish, and the trident symbolized Poseidon, god of the sea.

"Don't try to tell me it's not a phallic symbol," Edward taunted her.

"It's not!"

"Then what's it mean?"

"I thought you knew me so well that you'd have it figured out by now," Bella retorted.

"I still don't get why you'd want to mutilate yourself like that," Edward told her.

"Now who's being judgmental? You know, the Romans thought that circumcision was mutilation. But I'm sure that you think that's just fine."

"Are you asking if I'm circumcised?"

A need to put Edward on the defensive whet Bella's appetite for confirmation. "Well are you?"

"I know a way for you to find out."

"What? No." How the hell did he always manage to do that? Always turning things around like that?

"I can show you right now," Edward offered.

"No!"

"Well maybe not _right_ now. We are in a restaurant, after all."

Bella bit off a reply as the waiter came up one last time.

Edward quickly took care of the check, and before Bella knew it, he was escorting her from the restaurant.

"I'm sorry you didn't like your meal," he said, once they were back on the street.

"I liked it," she told him. And it was mostly true. Besides, if Edward hadn't taken her out, she would have been stuck eating Lean Cuisine.

"I'm glad." He waited. But she just stood there, awkwardly.

"My books?" Bella asked.

"Oh, right." He handed them over. "So next Thursday?" he asked.

"Next Thursday what?"

"Happy hour at Newton's."

Bella was suddenly conflicted. She hated him. He'd been a complete and total dick to her for much of the afternoon. But if he hadn't shown, she would probably be at home crying her eyes out by now. For better or worse, Edward had taken her mind off of her problems for a while.

Nevertheless, Bella was reluctant to re-immerse herself in the Cullens' lives. "Uh, no. I don't think so," she said.

"Why not?"

"I'm busy."

Edward sighed. "I'll try to be _nice_ , or whatever."

"Why do you want me there so much?"

"If you don't come, it'll just be me and my family."

"So?"

He didn't answer.

And at his refusal to answer made something inside of Bella suddenly feel sorry for him.

But she didn't want to pity him. She didn't want _sad Edward_. It was easier to hate him when he was being a jerk. So she went on the offensive. "Masen, you're pitiful."

His eyes narrowed. "You're not much better off."

"But I don't care. You do."

"Aren't you lonely?"

His question surprised her. She'd expected him to go for her throat.

Bella shook her head. "Does it matter? People take too much effort. They're not worth it."

"Even Alice?" Edward asked.

"Even Alice."

"But at the bookshop you said that you'd talk to her—you'd tell her how you and I were getting along. Were you lying?"

Bella realized that she'd given herself away, because _yes_ , she had been lying, but it was no good trying to fix it now. "I decided that you were right. I made a mistake contacting her after all of these years."

"So you're going to cut her off? Just like that?"

"Just like that," Bella said.

She watched a muscle work in Edward's jaw, and wondered what he was thinking. She would've thought that he'd be happy to know that he'd finally gotten her out of his life.

"If I admit that I want you to come, will you?" he asked, the harshness of his tone contrasting strangely against the vulnerability of his words.

Bella gaped back at him.

It shocked her to see him so exposed. And it confused her. _How can someone so vulnerable have caused me so much pain?_ she wondered.

"I'll be there," Bella said, surprising herself with the promise.

"Good," Edward nodded. "I'll see you then."

"See you," she said, and turned to go, happy to get away. But she'd only gone a few steps before a strange feeling came over her. Glancing back at Edward, she saw him still waiting on the sidewalk, watching her. "And sometimes a trident's just a trident," she said, and quickly crossed the street.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Edward needed a drink. And a Latin dictionary.

He set off for Breaking Dawn, just wanting a drink. He wasn't going to pick anyone up.

He needed to figure out what exactly was going on with Bella.

It was tempting to blame her—but _Edward_ was the one who had followed her around all afternoon. He was the one who bought a book written in Latin just to annoy her and dropped a hundred bucks just so that she could get the tattoo she wanted, then took her out to eat and practically begged her to come to the next happy hour.

 _It's just stress,_ he told himself. Here he was, struggling to break his old habits. And seeing her again was bringing up so many old memories. It wasn't his fault that she was so good at riling him up.

And never mind that twice now she'd sent him to Breaking Dawn, a place that he'd sworn off. The first time, it was because of a lap dance. This time, it was because of a tattoo that he couldn't get out of his head.

A trident. What did it mean?

Edward didn't bother scanning the tables as he walked into Breaking Dawn. He walked right up to the bar and ordered, then sat on a stool, nursing his drink, and trying to figure out just what the fuck he was doing with Bella Swan.

"Eddie," a voice purred in his ear.

He tensed involuntarily.

"Whatever happened to you and your little doe?" Tanya asked, twirling a champagne flute between her fingers as she took the seat beside him. "You whisked her out of here so quickly that night. Whatever did you do with her after that?"

"Nothing," Edward hitched a shoulder, he didn't want to talk about Bella with Tanya. "She went home."

Tanya tsked. "You would let something like that go? It's not often you have such an opportunity."

Edward shook his head. "I don't know what you mean."

Tanya smiled. "She was _untouched,_ wasn't she? How common is that? If you don't seize the opportunity, surely some other man here will snatch her up."

"She's not interested in any of the men here," Edward said, strangely pleased over that fact. _Is it a fact?_ he wondered. "She probably won't even come back." He wondered if there was a way to make sure that she didn't come back.

"She told you that?" For a moment, Tanya looked angry. Then her face smoothed over. "All the better. She's resisting. It will make your victory all the sweeter."

Edward snorted. "Are you serious?"

Tanya arched a perfectly shaped brow. "What? She's a little plain, perhaps. So? The unattainable nature of the prize compensates for any drawbacks. No?"

Edward swallowed the rest of his drink in one gulp. He remembered the sight of Bella standing at the bar, surrounded by suitors. He felt his hands forming into fists.

 _Get it together_ , Edward told himself.

But then he was assaulted by the memory of Bella sitting on his lap, grinding against him. Her tongue on his collar bone.

 _Not that he was attracted—_

A sudden heat surged through his veins.

Only to be followed by a current of ice as he recalled all of the times that Bella had sneered at him.

Bella would never let him anywhere near her. The lap dance was an aberration—Bella had clearly only done it to piss him off. She obviously regretted it afterwards.

He looked at Tanya. "You're wrong," he told her. "She's incorruptible."

Edward was shocked to hear Tanya emit what sounded like a giggle.

"Well," she said, "we'll just have to try extra _hard_." Her hand brushed against Edward's thigh, emphasizing her last word. "Let's consider it an experiment, shall we?"

"To corrupt Bella?" Edward removed Tanya's hand from his thigh.

"Is that her name?" Tanya really did giggle this time. " _Bella?_ How gorgeously inappropriate." She shivered. "It's surreal."

"Her name's actually Isabella."

"Close enough. What's her last name?"

It was none of Tanya's goddamn business. But what did it matter? "Swan."

" _Stop!_ Now I know that you're lying. No parent would be so cruel as to name their daughter 'beautiful swan.' Poor girl. No wonder she's a virgin."

"I'm not sure that she is."

"Of course she is."

"Even if that's true, this so-called experiment—"

"To corrupt Isa _bella_ Swan. I know you want to."

Edward stared at the ice melting in his glass. What Tanya was suggesting was monstrous.

 _But you're a monster, aren't you?_ he thought.

He stood up.

"Where're you going?" Tanya asked. "We need to plan your seduction."

"I don't need your help," he told her.

 **AN:**

 **Rec:** _ **Unfinished**_ **by remedy25**


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

' _Half a nymph with glancing eyes and fair cheeks, and half again a huge snake, great and awful, with speckled skin_.' Hesiod, _Theogony_ on Project Perseus

Chapter 10

Staring at herself in the mirror in the changing booth, Bella was surprised to find that she actually liked what she was seeing. The skirt swirled prettily when she swayed her hips.

But Bella didn't want to leave the changing booth. She felt awkward in the dress—like it didn't belong on her. And she didn't want to have to put up with Alice's reaction when she caught a glimpse of Bella in the outfit.

 _Why couldn't Alice just leave things alone?_

Of course, Alice was the reason that Bella was even trying the dress on.

For days, Alice had been leaving voicemails begging Bella to come down to her boutique. In the end, Bella had decided that it might actually be a good thing to see Alice one-on-one. Despite Bella's promise to Edward, she still hadn't decided whether she wanted to see any of the Cullens again.

On the one hand, Bella felt like it was in her best interests to cut them all off.

On the other hand, part of Bella—a part that she despised—actually missed Alice.

She kept going around and around in circles, trying to decide what to do.

In the end, she decided to see Alice on her own. If it didn't go well, then Bella would be fully justified in forgetting the Cullens for good. If it went well, then—

Alice had been so excited to see Bella coming through the door of the boutique that she'd actually clapped her hands. _Clapped her hands with glee._

And for a minute, Bella almost thought that it might not be that bad, catching up with Alice.

But then, looking around the boutique, Bella began to feel uneasy. She was, once again, dressed in thrift shop chic, and the cheapest top on sale cost a hundred dollars.

Bella's sense of trepidation was by no means allayed by the realization that Rosalie was also there. Bella had nothing against Rosalie, but she couldn't help feeling a little intimidated by someone so beautiful.

Then Alice pulled out the dark blue stretch dress.

Despite Bella's best efforts, Alice wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. So Bella tried the dress on, refusing to look at the price tag.

And, unfortunately, she liked the way it looked on her. She _really_ liked it.

But it probably cost more than her entire wardrobe. And her dingy bra straps were exposed by the cut of the sleeves, while the clingy fabric showed just how cheap her underwear was ( _underwear_ , not _panties_ , as the latter, in Bella's opinion, should cost more than three dollars each).

Bella pulled the dress off and put her clothes back on.

"What's wrong?" Alice pouted when Bella came out of the booth. "Doesn't it fit?"

"It fits just fine," Bella said, returning the dress to the rack and stepping away resolutely. She wasn't trying on anything else.

"Don't you like it?"

"I like it."

"Then what's the problem?"

 _Wasn't it obvious?_ "I don't have the right lingerie." Bella said, as if a strapless bra was the only thing standing between her and a dress that probably cost a couple of hundred dollars.

Alice perked right up. "We can take care of that." She grabbed Bella's hand and started to drag her away.

Bella looked around wildly for Rosalie, desperate for help. But Rosalie had disappeared into one of the changing booths, perhaps never to be seen again.

Alice halted in front of a wall of panties and started to pull down a thong.

Bella stopped her. "Alice, that costs more than what I spend on groceries in a week." Rolling her eyes, Bella tried to hand the dress back to Alice. "Not to mention this dress. I can't afford it."

"Oh, relax Bella," Alice giggled. "I know that."

A surge of anger shot through Bella. _Was Alice just fucking with her?_ Bella remembered again how Alice had thrown her away, all of those years ago.

"These are gifts," Alice said. "Just remember, when they ask you who you're wearing: 'Alice Cullen.'"

Bella's annoyance gave way to reluctance. She didn't want to take a gift from Alice.

Not wanting to have to deal with that issue, Bella deflected. "You designed the dress?"

Alice rolled her eyes. "Duh. Why'd you think you're here?"

 _I don't know. Why don't you tell me?_ Bella thought ruefully. Was this really the Alice she'd become friends with all of those years ago?

The fickle little creature standing before Bella was certainly more than a little reminiscent of the Alice who'd tossed Bella away so easily.

 _But she thinks she's being nice_ , Bella told herself. And she let Alice push her back into a changing booth with the dress, a strapless bra and a thong.

 _Am I really going to do this?_ Bella asked herself as she began disrobing again. _Play dress up like we're kids again?_

When they were young, Bella was so desperate for friendship that she would have done almost anything to make Alice like her. _A fucking pet_. Back then Bella let Alice dress her up all of the time, at least behind closed doors. In public, Bella refused to wear anything that would draw any attention. Alice, on the contrary, was always garnering attention with her outlandish getups, though more often than not, the attention was unwanted, Alice's tastes being a little too outré for most. It wasn't until Bella's mother came to town that Alice suddenly became so much more popular.

When Bella emerged from the dressing room, she found Rosalie studying herself in a mirror, an exotic leather bustier lending Rosalie an air of fierceness.

"Like an Amazon warrior princess," Alice complimented Rosalie.

"The Amazons cut off their left breasts," Bella said, without thinking. "So that they could pull the strings on their bows."

"You're so weird," Alice said, handing Bella a pair of shoes.

"I don't wear heels," Bella told her, wondering what had possessed her to make that remark about the Amazons.

"But you would look better in heels. The height would make your legs seem so much thinner."

Bella didn't like the implication that she looked overweight, but she held her tongue, only to feel Alice tugging on a lock.

"And you should get a cut," Alice said.

"I like my hair," Bella said, because it was true.

Alice nodded. "But you could just try something new. Like wearing make-up. You could be so pretty."

What Bella heard was: _You could_ seem _thin. You_ could _be pretty_.

"Alice, be nice," Rosalie chided.

Alice laughed. "If you can't count on a friend to tell you the truth, who can you count on?"

 _A friend?_ Was Alice being a friend when she turned on Bella all of those years ago?

"Bella, you're not upset are you?" Alice asked.

"I'm fine," Bella lied, because Alice had no right to know that Bella actually gave a fuck what Alice thought about anything.

Alice seemed to buy the lie— _because she's a narcissistic vapid bitch_ , Bella thought.

Rosalie seemed less convinced.

Nevertheless, the three of them headed to a café down the street for lunch, as if they were actually friends.

Alice spent most of the lunch filling Rosalie in on stories about the good ole days, when she and Bella were still teenagers in Forks. Of course, Alice conveniently left out any mention of their falling out. And, as lunch wrapped up, Bella couldn't help wondering if Alice had any intention of addressing it, ever.

At no point had either of them said as much as a word about just why they were no longer friends. Both of them had stuck to gushing nonsensically about how good it was to get back in touch and how excited they were to be seeing each other again.

Perhaps that was for the best. _What was the point of reopening old wounds?_ It wasn't as if Bella wanted an apology—she didn't know what she'd do if Alice actually tried to apologize—but Alice's blasé attitude, as if the two of them had simply fallen out of touch and nothing more, was a little hard to take. Then Bella reminded herself that Alice had in fact just given her a dress and undergarments. Bella ought to feel grateful.

Except that Bella couldn't help wondering if Alice's generosity was only fueled by the fear of being seen with someone wearing thrift shop chic.

Bella had put that thought out of mind as soon as Alice suggested the café for lunch—it was so very low brow.

But as the two of them were walking out of the café after lunch—Rosalie having already headed back to the office—Alice linked arms with Bella and said, "You know, I only mentioned this place because I wanted you to feel comfortable, but it was much better than I expected."

And it was like a kick in the gut.

Bella knew that she was probably being overly sensitive. If it anyone else had said something like that, Bella would have been grateful that they were taking into consideration the fact that Bella couldn't really afford the finest fare.

But it was Alice, and to Bella it sounded like Alice was saying, yet again, that Bella wasn't good enough, even dressed up as she was.

And to think that Bella had been feeling guilty about agreeing to her fairy godmother's proposition to take advantage of Alice. Now—

 _Fuck Alice_.

Bella suddenly stopped walking.

"You know what Alice? Fuck you."

"What?" Alice gaped at her.

"I don't need your fucking charity. I'm fine just the way I am. I _like_ myself. But I _won't_ like myself anymore if I condescend to put up with a conniving little bitch like you."

Alice just stared back at her.

Bella laughed. "You haven't changed at all, have you? And I'm sorry, but the fact is, you're not good enough for me. So take your cheap ass dress and your crappy lingerie, and shove it up your ass."

Bella turned, heading for the nearest shop so that she could use the restroom and change.

"Wait," Alice pled, grabbing onto Bella's arm.

"Get the fuck off of me," Bella snapped.

Their argument was drawing the attention of passersby but Bella didn't give a damn. She'd spent her entire senior year being the center of attention—practically the whole student body mocking her and insulting her for months on end. She couldn't care less about the three or four people who'd stopped to stare at her and Alice.

"I didn't mean to put you down," Alice said.

"Right."

"I just—I wanted to do something nice for you."

"So you spent the afternoon insulting me? And then telling Rosalie all of these bullshit stories about how we were the best of friends? Why didn't you tell her about the time you wrote 'whore' on my locker at school?"

Alice blanched.

"Yeah, you thought I didn't know it was you, did you? I saw the whole fucking thing, you bitch."

To Bella's complete and utter annoyance, tears actually started trailing from Alice's eyes. Like Bella was supposed to feel sorry for _Alice._

"Bella, you have to understand—it was horrible for me back then."

"Oh, I understand. I was right there," Bella reminded her.

"I mean—they were so mean to me. All of the time."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Bella couldn't believe that Alice was trying to make herself out as the victim.

"I just couldn't take it anymore."

"They were mean to me, too, Alice. I fucking stood up for you."

"But then," Alice's eyes dropped. "But then everything with your mom happened and it got so much worse. It wasn't just you—they were calling me names, too, for being your friend."

A wave of nausea passed over Bella. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "So you're telling me—" Bella's voice cracked as her eyes began to stung. _Don't you cry in front of Alice!_ she told herself. "It's _my_ fault? It's _my_ fault that you turned on me?"

"No!" Alice's horrified gaze met Bella's eyes again. "Of course not! But, I was selfish. I was a bitch. You're right. I should have stood by you. I just—" Alice broke off, putting her face into her hands.

Bella wanted to scream at Alice. _How dare she—_

"I'm sorry, Bella," Alice said, her face in her hands. "I don't like who I became when I did that to you. I don't like who I was at all. Sometimes, I still don't like myself."

"Then fucking change!" Bella couldn't believe that Alice was pulling this shit.

"What?" Alice dropped her hands.

"If you don't like yourself, don't be that fucking person!" Bella felt like shaking Alice.

"It's not always that easy."

"Of course, it is. You're not a fucking automaton. You make your own decisions."

Alice shook her head, dashing the tears from her cheeks. Then, noticing that they were being watched, Alice glared at the eavesdroppers before looking back at Bella and dropping her voice to almost a whisper. "They were calling me a 'whore,' too. I told them to fuck off, and they asked if I thought it was alright—" Alice broke off again. "They asked me if I thought it was alright that your mother—that she did what she did. And I said 'no.' I said 'she's a whore.' And Bella, you thought so too! You thought she was a whore! You hated your mother! You hated her for what she did! So I said that I thought she was a 'whore,' and they said that I had to prove it. I told them that it wasn't your fault, that you weren't like your mother. And they started in on me again."

When Bella replied, her voice had dropped as well, but it was laced with venom. "Boo hoo, Alice. I feel so fucking sorry for you. Thank God you were able to get them off your back at last by turning on me."

"It wasn't like that!"

"What was it like then? Tell me how you turn on your own best friend?"

"They were saying that Edward was one of them. One of the boys." Alice took a deep breath. "And he wouldn't talk to me. I tried to ask him. I wanted him to tell me it wasn't true. But he just ignored me. All summer long. He would hardly speak to me at all—and then he left for college. It was like I'd lost my brother! Because of your mother! She took him from me."

"And that's my fault?"

"No, but if you'd never come to Forks, if your father didn't have that accident, if your mother never came, none of it would have happened."

"Fuck you, Alice."

"I'm sorry. I know it wasn't your fault. I knew it then. But I was just so fucking lonely—Edward wasn't there to look out for us anymore. To keep the worst of the bullies away in school."

 _Bullshit_ , Bella thought. She refused to believe that Edward had ever done shit for her.

Alice continued, "And I just gave up. I couldn't take it anymore. I thought that if I just told them that I agreed with them—about you—if I was just saying it behind your back, that it wouldn't matter. You wouldn't know. And they'd leave me alone. Then it just got out of control. I—I wrote that word on your locker. And for the first time, I wasn't being treated like a loser. I wasn't the one they were always making fun of. They were acting like I was one of them."

" _You_ were lonely? _You_? After you betrayed me, I had no one. No one! No friends! No family!"

"I'm sorry. I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to tell you that I was sorry. I thought you would have understood that I had to do it."

"Understood?" Bella couldn't help laughing. "That you had no choice? You _had_ a choice. I never would have turned my back on you. Not for anything."

"Don't you ever make mistakes? Don't you ever do something and it's like it's not even you doing it? Like you're not in control?"

Bella laughed again, a cruel sound. "Grow the fuck up Alice. You're responsible for the things you do."

Alice swallowed. "You're right."

 _For all the good it does me_ , Bella thought.

"I'm sorry, Bella," Alice said again, gazing at Bella with an imploring expression.

"And what? I'm just supposed to forgive you?"

"I thought that's why you contacted me. I thought that you were over it."

"Over it?" _Ha!_

 _But then, Alice had every reason to think that, didn't she?_ Bella realized. _Alice didn't know Bella's true reasons for getting back in touch._

"I'm not the person you used to know," Bella said, though she wasn't sure what she meant by that.

"I'm not either."

"Really? Because you still seem like a shallow, stuck-up bitch who would turn on me again for the sake of your reputation."

"I wouldn't! Not again. I learned my mistake. I've missed you." And Alice really did sound sincere.

 _What the fuck is going on?_ Bella wondered.

Her head was aching. She was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, causing a scene—the very kind of scene she hated so very much.

But she'd finally gotten her apology, for whatever it was worth. An apology that she'd long since given up on.

Alice started speaking again. "If you can't forgive me, I'll understand. But can we maybe start over?"

Bella took a step back, her eyes widening. "I don't know how to trust you," she told Alice truthfully.

Alice winced, but nodded. "I'll just have to prove myself, then. That's ok."

 _Cut her off!_ Bella's instincts said. But, something else had her saying, "This patronizing bullshit has got to stop. I mean, do you even realize how rude you were to me today? With that shit about my legs and my hair. Not to mention the café."

"I get it. I do. I just—the people I work with in this industry are such assholes. The way they talk to each other. And sometimes I have to act like a bitch, too, so that people don't fuck with me. But that's my _job_. That's not who I _am_."

Bella closed her eyes. Cutting Alice off might be the safest option, but did she really want to do that?

Bella _was_ lonely. Angela—and probably Jacob—no doubt considered her a good acquaintance, and there had been other acquaintances over the years, but Bella never really made an effort to really get to know people anymore. She didn't trust anyone. She couldn't.

 _What the fuck are you doing?_ Bella asked herself again as she felt herself nodding. "Ok."

Bella had a drawer-full of misgivings about trying to renew her friendship with Alice, but she would be lying if she said that she never missed her old friend, the old Alice.

Maybe she was being desperate, maybe it was just another sign of how low she'd sunk, but Bella just wanted to remember what it was like to have fun. To laugh with a friend. She wanted to remember what it was like all of those years ago, back before her father's accident.

Because, fucked up though Bella's life had been back then, at least she wasn't alone.

So Bella decided to give Alice another chance.

The two of them went back to the boutique and hung out for a few hours. Alice insisted that Bella keep the dress on, and Bella had to admit that she liked the way it made her feel—almost as if she had more confidence.

When they got to Newton's that night, a few of Bella's former students flagged her down. Going over to talk for a few minutes, Bella had been surprised—and exhilarated—to find that they not only remembered her, but that they thought she was one of the better TAs they'd ever had, or so they said.

Alas, Edward was none too pleased to discover Bella surrounded by a small crowd of her former students—all of them male, and all of them paying her court.

Bella had her back towards Edward, long shiny curls bouncing up and down and fabric swirling around her legs. Not that shiny curls or legs were objectionable in and of themselves—but said curls were only bouncing because Bella was bobbing her head as she spoke animatedly to a small group of young men clustered in front of the dart board, and the legs was swishing as she turned from one to the other, clearly oblivious to the fact that the young men were checking her out.

Edward wasn't quite sure what his intentions were. Tanya's words were still ringing in his ears: "To corrupt Isa _bella_ Swan. I know you want to."

 _He did._ He wanted the high-and-mighty Isabella Swan, who'd always looked down on him, to realize that she was no better than him.

But it wasn't just that. If Bella really was missing out on life, because of what happened at Port Angeles, then that wasn't right.

And there was the not insignificant issue of Edward's recovery. He was struggling with an addiction. Bella's unobtainability made her the very sort of temptation that he would've been all too eager to sample just six months ago.

But he was better. He was getting better.

Or rather, he was teetering, wavering on the brink of something that he couldn't quite describe because he couldn't see it clearly.

At least he wasn't sitting in the break room at work thinking about throwing himself out of a window.

No, he was standing in Newton's, watching an asshole leer at Bella's ass.

 _Yeah, that was enough of that._

Creeping stealthily up behind Bella, Edward made sure that the wannabe suitors had shifted their attention to him by the time he gave Bella a hello. The disappointed puppies looked like they'd just been hit on the nose with a newspaper. _That's right fuckers._

Startled by Edward's sudden appearance, Bella cast him a wary frown, but he just smiled back. He was standing rather too closely for comfort, so she shifted towards the wall, her exit blocked off by the lapdogs.

Not wanting to cause a scene, Bella decided to be magnanimous. She said "We were just discussing the gendered implications of imperialism."

Edward blinked. Glancing at the assembled young men, he said, "These fellows are all standing around discussing the _gendered_ implications of _imperialism_? With _you_? In a bar?"

"They're all old enough to drink."

Edward laughed. "That's not what I mean."

The losers were all scowling at Edward. That was alright.

"I used to be their TA," Bella tried to explain.

"Oh, I guessed that already."

She shook her head. "America's activities in the Persian Gulf have been likened to those of Athens in the Delian League by more than—"

Edward couldn't take it anymore. "Sorry boys, the lady and I have to talk."

"Is something wrong?" Bella asked, following Edward.

"Only your pig-headed refusal to see what was really going on back there."

"Which was?"

"They wanted to take teacher home."

Bella stopped. "You're insane!" she whisper-screamed. "They were just interested in the subject."

"I don't doubt it. Are you even wearing a bra?"

Bella looked down at herself and blushed, remembering the strapless number Alice had given her. "Of course."

"Where'd you get that dress from? It doesn't look like your style."

"Alice." Bella didn't like Edward's tone. What did he mean about the dress not looking like her style? It did show more skin than she was used to exposing, but was that necessarily a bad thing? She already suspected that she looked like a kid playing dress up, but was it worse than that? Did she look _bad_?

Not to mention that Edward was being a dick.

Bella shook her head. "You told me that you were going to be nice to me if I came tonight. You promised." She felt the admission made her sound weak, but it wasn't fair—he was being a dick.

"How am I not being nice? I just thought that you might want to be given a head's up that they were checking you out," Edward said with a smirk, his tone implying that he thought it was a joke that anyone should find Bella attractive. "Should I have kept my mouth shut? Maybe you wanted one of them to take you home." He glanced back at the crowd of youths. "Which one's your favorite? I'll take you back so that you can proceed with the plan."

"Make fun of someone else," she said, moving to go around him.

"Why do you think I'm making fun of you?" he asked, stopping her.

"You're going to make me say it?"

"Say what?"

 _That no one could want me,_ Bella thought. Instead she said, "You know that they're not interested in me that way."

"How would I know that?"

"I'm a good TA, actually," Bella said, changing topics. "They liked my class."

"Oh, they liked your class alright. It had nothing to do with your teaching abilities."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You've never had a student hit on you?"

Bella's jaw dropped. "Of course not."

Edward didn't believe it. He was pretty sure she'd been hit on plenty of times, and just hadn't realized it. "They're still watching you," he told her. "Your every move. They're wondering if you're going to leave with me tonight and if not, which of them has the best chance with you. If I hadn't come along, they would have tried to talk you into going to some party."

"I wouldn't have gone," Bella said, her forehead furrowing.

"They still would have tried. They're probably arguing right now over whether or not you swallow when you give head."

Her jaw clenched. "Don't say things like that. It's not true."

"You come here in a dress like that with your hair like that, and surround yourself with barely legal boys who'd like nothing more than to lick your neck, which, I might add, has been quite vulgarly exposed by this dress of yours, and you expect me to buy this innocence act?"

"Fuck you."

"Don't make promises you don't intend to keep."

Abruptly, Bella swung to the side and slipped past Edward. But he caught up with her before she could make it to the table where Alice and Emmett were sitting.

"I don't know what you want from me," Bella said, deftly slipping out of Edward's reach.

"I want you to stop playing the Lady of Shallot for two minutes and realize what an amazing woman you could be."

" _Could_ be?" she seethed, spinning around to glare up at him. "So I'm not amazing right now?" This was like the conversation with Alice at the boutique all over again. _Bella_ could _be thin. She_ could _be pretty. But she wasn't. Not now._

"The insult exists only in your perception of yourself," Edward back-peddled. This wasn't going the way he'd planned. He hadn't intended to start a fight.

" _My_ perception? How am I _supposed_ to take it when someone tells me that I'm not amazing?"

"As a challenge to live up to your full potential." And Edward meant it. He felt like she'd cut herself off from life. She wasn't living to her fullest—and Edward couldn't help thinking that it was in part because of what _he_ 'd done with her mother, and because of Port Angeles.

"I don't share your opinion as to what my full potential might be," Bella said primly, chin in the air.

"And just what do you think that I want for you? Just what do you think I consider your full potential to be?"

"I don't know," Bella snapped, exasperated. "You probably agree with your sister?" She glared down at the dress. "But I won't be a painted whore."

"You don't know me at all," Edward retorted. That was the last thing he wanted for her.

"Yet you claim to know me so well," Bella huffed. "You keep telling me that I should _want_ things. But I don't want anything. You say that you know all about my desires. You don't know anything." Bella left out the part about thinking that the Lady of Shallot from Tennyson's poem should have stayed in her tower. That the fair maiden was better off alone, pining away for companionship, then going down into the world, where all she had waiting for her was a meeting with death.

"What is it you're afraid of?" Edward asked. He wanted her to admit it—that she was afraid of the world.

"Being judged."

"I don't judge you," Edward said. He was the last person to ever judge anyone.

"You do nothing but."

And, on second thought, Edward had to admit that she was right. He _did_ judge her. Grimacing, he said, "I can't help it. You're just so," he struggled for the word, "unmade."

She cocked her head to the side. "That's how you see me? Unmade?"

"Unfinished. Undone."

"And how would you have me be _finished_?"

Could he really say it out loud? "I would—I would have you _corrupted._ " Edward had no intention of taking Tanya up on her offer. That is, his proposal to Bella had nothing to do with Tanya. Tanya had merely spelled it out for him, given words to his own unspoken inclinations to discover a hidden potential. This would be solely between Bella and himself.

Bella's jaw fell open. She gazed at Edward in shock. "Corrupted?"

Bella fell quiet for a moment, then pursed her lips. "What of you?" she asked. Her eyes swept over Edward, head to toe and back, like he was a piece of meat. "Could you be corrupted too?"

"No. I'm already corrupt." The suggestion was nonsensical.

"So a person can only be corrupted towards—what is it—debauchery? You want me debauched?"

"You needn't call it 'debauched,' but yes. You'd be corrupted. And afterwards…you wouldn't be the same. You wouldn't have to be, I mean. You'd be free. Don't you see?" Edward ignored the fact that it felt like he was trying to convince her as much as himself. "You've put yourself in a prison."

"I'm not in a prison. I'm happy."

"How can you be happy if you've cut everyone off?"

"That's exactly it. I don't want anyone."

"But don't you realize what you're missing?"

She sneered. "What? A husband? Children?"

Edward nodded and she went on. "Masen, I'll tell you what. I'll get married when you do."

Edward blinked, taken aback by the vehemence in her voice. "That's different. I've gone…too far, in my corruption. I'm no longer suitable for family-life. But I wouldn't let you go so far off course." He wouldn't. He'd stop himself from completely corrupting her. He could do that, couldn't he?

"You wouldn't _let_ me go off course? How kind of you." Bella couldn't believe what a patronizing dick he was being.

"What about a wager?" Edward asked, the ludicrous idea popping into his head as he scrambled for a way to get her through to her.

"What?"

"A wager."

"What would I have to do?"

"Nothing you didn't want to," he assured her. "Just give me a chance."

"A chance for what?"

"To corrupt you."

 **AN:**

 **Lady of Shallot appears in a poem by Tennyson – I think he invented her, but I could be wrong about that. As I said, she's in a tower by herself, staring out at the world and pining to join it. When she finally does, she dies.**

Rec: An old favorite of mine - _I_ _n the Days of Auld Lang Syne: Fix You_ by Feisty Y. Beden Reeling from traumatic events in high school, Alice hid away a part of her soul. Can Jasper help her find it again, when she didn't know she was looking? Story is rated M for language. A/J, AH, OOC. Part of larger series *In the Days of Auld Lang Syne* Twilight - Rated: M - English - Angst - Chapters: 28 - Words: 110,346 - Reviews: 651 - Favs: 218 - Follows: 116 - Updated: May 14, 2010 - Published: Feb 24, 2009 - Alice, Jasper – Complete


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

' _The anchors lose their grip. And now a billow, greater than the first, rushes upon us, fraught with perils grave, while the ship plunges deep into the wave_.' — Alcaeus, translator unknown

Chapter 11

Edward couldn't believe the words that were coming out of his mouth. Was he really propositioning Bella?

 _A wager?_ Really?

He kept expecting for her to tell him to drop dead and walk away.

But she didn't.

Bella _was_ , however, staring at Edward, dumfounded. "Are you serious?"

Edward nodded. God help him.

"What do you mean 'corrupted'?" she asked. "I'm not having sex with you."

Something inside of Edward twisted at the tone of disgust in her voice. But he rushed to explain, embarrassed that she would even think that was what he meant. _Wasn't that_ exactly _what he meant?_ "I don't mean that. I'm not talking about sex. Just—just give me a chance to make you see what you're missing."

"Why would I agree to something like that?"

"Consider it research. For your dissertation." Edward was waiting for her to tell him to go to hell.

Instead she asked, "Why would you do this?"

He couldn't help it. The words just came tumbling out of his mouth. "It would… _please_ me to see you corrupted."

Edward held his breath, watching as an emotion he couldn't identify flashed over Bella's face, and she closed her eyes.

He felt something inside of him snap, a chill running down his spine. _I've gone too far_ , he thought, and he began to panic. Bella was going walk out of this bar and that was going to be it.

 _No_.

Edward tried to remind himself that he was alone regardless of what Bella did. He was always alone.

Still—

At last, Bella opened her eyes and looked at him again, a steely resolve flashing in the depths of her eyes. "If I'm vulnerable to corruption, then so are you."

Relieved that she hadn't told him to fuck off, Edward couldn't help the snort of derision. "I can't become a virgin again."

She tsked. "You've abandoned yourself to luxury and vice."

"I'm not hurting anyone."

"But you _are_ —or at least, you _could_ hurt someone—the true hedonist is utterly untrustworthy. He's so addicted to his desires that he'd do anything to satisfy them."

 _What the fuck was she talking about?_

Edward had certainly led Bella to believe that he was a hedonist, maybe, but an _addict_? She couldn't possibly know what she was saying. _How dare she?_

But she had always been able to see through him, hadn't she?

Bella sniffed primly. "You can be seduced away from that."

Masking his annoyance, Edward adopted a haughty tone in turn. "How do you propose to seduce me away from seduction?"

"It's as good as done." Bella tapped a finger against her chin. "That is, if you can read. You _can_ read, can't you?"

"I can _read_."

"Excellent. Your corruption will involve reading."

Edward smirked. "I think you do too much reading. Your corruption will involve _experience._ "

Panic briefly flashed over Bella's face before she schooled her features and moved on to the next order of business. "The results of the corruption—which of us has succeeded—will have to be mutually determined. That's the only thing that makes sense."

Edward had his own, private ideas, about that. But he hadn't quite admitted to himself the full scope of his plans, Tanya's taunting words still lingering in the back of his mind. So he opted to employ legalistic language that obscured more than it clarified, "The nature of your corruption will be such that you'll be incapable of denying it once it happens. I win when you agree that you've been corrupted."

"And vice versa."

It was so ridiculous—Bella's confidence in her ability to "corrupt" him—it was so laughable that Edward forgot his annoyance over the accusation that he was hurting himself, or others, with his devotion to so-called hedonism. He smiled. "What are we competing for?" He knew the prize that he wanted of course. Or rather, part of him knew. But he refused to consciously admit it.

Bella smiled too, a vicious, competitive kind of smile. The kind of smile she used to use on him when they were younger, when she was mocking him. But for some reason, the smile didn't rile Edward the way it used to. It was more _interesting_ than annoying.

She said, "Why, merely the pleasure of corrupting another, of course."

That was good enough for Edward. For now. "I accept your terms."

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI – CI

Edward was depressed.

This wasn't an entirely unusual sensation for Edward, but it was unwelcome, especially since he'd woken for his shift in a strangely chipper mood. For the life of him, he couldn't put his finger on just what had him in such high spirits as he went through his routine of showering and dressing. It wasn't until he got to work that he recalled his proposal to Bella. While that promised to provide an interesting diversion, Edward didn't believe that it could really be responsible for his good mood. It was just a game. And it was just Bella.

Unfortunately, his high spirits were not to last. Edward lost two patients during his shift.

Losing patients was something that a doctor simply had to become used to. It wasn't pleasant, but it was inevitable. While a good doctor never stopped caring, a good doctor also never let himself become carried away by grief.

It behooved physicians to develop a routine for dealing with such disappointments. In the past, a day like this would have sent Edward straight to Breaking Dawn. Several rounds of sex and he would have been back to normal.

But he wasn't going to go to Breaking Dawn. And even though it was the middle of the day (Edward's shift having started the previous evening), Edward didn't want to avail himself of his other usual means of relieving stress, running. He was too tired to head out on the rainy streets.

So, for lack of anything better to do, Edward pulled opened his laptop. And even though he knew it was probably a mistake, he started shopping for presents.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI – CI

Bella was out of sorts.

She was confused.

Discombobulated.

Wary.

And, certainly most disconcertingly of all, perhaps even a little excited.

She wanted to put that last feeling down to the simple hope that she might actually find the money to pay for her father's new treatment, after she'd abandoned all hope.

But Bella knew that wasn't the only reason for the sudden anticipation—or, _good God_ , it couldn't be _desire_ , could it?—the feeling baiting her now.

Anxiety. That was it.

At least, that was what she told herself.

A dark secret part of her wondered if Edward was right about there being something wrong with her, something that could be "fixed." She wondered what that might mean for her.

An even darker part, a vicious, self-destructive part of her _wanted_ what Edward seemed to be offering, not because she wanted to be "fixed" but, rather, because she suspected— _knew_ —that she wouldn't be "fixed" by what was coming. On the contrary, she'd be thoroughly and irrevocably damaged, so much so, that there would be no point in trying to hold the pieces together. She could just let go. And she was tired of holding the pieces together.

The thought of letting go, unravelling, scared her. Because she wasn't her mother.

But all of that was too much to deal with. So instead Bella turned her thoughts to the irony of her situation.

It was ironic, wasn't it, that just when she had decided to call the whole deal with Tanya off, it was suddenly looking as if she might be able to go through with it after all?

Her success was all the more surprising in that she'd ignored all of Tanya's advice. _Some fairy godmother Tanya was_.

Still, Bella couldn't bring herself to throw herself headlong into the wave, as it were, and just go with it. She was wary to find out what Edward had in store for her.

She'd already warned him that she wouldn't have sex with him. Some instinct had forced the words out of her mouth, even as she tried to hold them back.

She told herself that she was just being coy by pretending to be out of reach. But that was a lie, because she didn't want him to win, not really.

She told herself that it was just a game.

A game she was supposed to let Edward win, but still.

She wouldn't make it easy for him.

That son of a bitch.

That motherfucker.

Quite literally.

Tanya left Bella a voicemail saying that she had seen Edward, and from their conversation Tanya thought that things were coming along swimmingly. _Swimmingly_.

Bella tried not to dwell on what that meant. Clearly, Tanya and Edward had spoken about her, but Bella didn't want to know what they said. She didn't think that she'd be able to carry on the ruse with Edward if she knew what he'd told Tanya.

So Bella played dumb, refusing to let herself think about the situation she'd gotten herself into, and going through her days in something of a haze.

Out of sorts.

Confused.

And so on.

But still, she was _trying_.

So it was particularly frustrating to see her students putting so little effort into their work.

Thirty minutes into her Wednesday afternoon section, Bella found herself staring down at nineteen young people, who were all staring back at her with glazed eyes, unblinking. There was absolute silence.

She tried prompting them: "So what do you think this poem says about Roman feelings towards the people they've colonized?"

Not even fucking crickets.

She tried reading a line of the poem: _'Come now,' says she, 'come, go fiercely, let madness hunt him.'"_

Dead quiet.

She tried again: " _Shall I be taken away from my country, what I possess, my friends, parents?_ "

Nothing.

"Why is Catullus so upset?" she asked in a pleading voice.

Bella would have killed for some fucking crickets.

She sighed. "Is it the castration that's shut you all up? Or are you just bored?"

"It's the castration," Peter, one of her more helpful students clarified.

"Yeah, it's the castration," another student added.

"Definitely the castration," a third agreed.

"This poem's about _castration_?" a horrified voice asked.

Relieved that it was the threat of emasculation, and not her, that was the problem, Bella nevertheless wondered (and not for the first time) if she'd be better off flipping burgers for a living.

And, because her day wasn't already crappy enough, after class, James (he of the creepy eyes) asked in his usual, weird monotone if she was still holding office hours that week.

"I don't have any plans to cancel," she told him. "And if I do end up having to change them, I'll send a group email."

Alas, that didn't seem enough for James, because he kept standing there, looking at her as the other students filed out of the classroom.

"So, I'll see you," she said, and left.

Bella continued going through the motions for the rest of the day. And that evening, Bella returned home to find her roommate waiting for her, a rare occurrence as they weren't often in the apartment at the same time.

"You got a package," her roommate wheezed, cigarette in hand.

"Oh, thanks," Bella replied, grateful for the heads up.

"I had to sign for it," her roommate continued, sounding agitated.

"Ok." Bella wasn't sure why her roommate seemed so out of sorts. "The delivery man didn't wake you up did he?"

"Yeah, but whatever." Her roommate worked nights.

"Sorry." And Bella _was_ sympathetic. _But come on._

"It's no big deal. I figure, they gotta wake me up, it must be important. I was going to open it for you—you know, in case it was important—but then you got home."

 _What the fuck?_

"Ok. Well. Thanks." Bella grabbed the small package off of the coffee table and hurried back to her bedroom.

Safely ensconced in her room, Bella inspected the package. She didn't recognize the handwriting on the label or the return address. The sender hadn't included his or her name, but it was a Seattle address.

Wondering if it was a belated birthday present— _but who could have sent it?—_ Bella started to open it.

Inside of the outer box, Bella was surprised to find a smaller package, wrapped again in brown paper, and a piece of paper with a phone number and the words "Call me before opening."

 _Seriously, what the fuck?_

Who would send Bella something like this? Not her fairy godmother.

Maybe this was some joke of Jacob's or Angela's. But Bella didn't really know them that well.

Alice or Emmett?

Unlikely.

 _Masen_.

Yep. Clearly, Edward was already playing the game.

Suddenly nervous, Bella went to the kitchen and fixed dinner: canned beans on white bread with cheese with a lot of black pepper, wholly unappetizing but cheap.

"So what was in the box?" her roommate asked as Bella fiddled with the microwave.

"I haven't opened it yet," Bella said, annoyed by the question.

Her roommate huffed, but didn't say anything else.

Bella went back to her room and ate, her irritation over her roommate a pleasant distraction from the task before her. But all too soon, Bella finished eating and was staring at her phone.

Working up her courage, she dialed the number.

 _What if she was wrong about who'd sent the package?_

 _What if she was right?_

"Hello?" a familiar male voice answered.

Despite herself, Bella felt a rush of relief. "Uh, it's me," Bella said. "Bella."

"I was almost sure you wouldn't call," Edward said.

"I didn't know it was you. Why didn't you write your name?"

"I wasn't sure if that would make you _more_ or _less_ likely to follow through."

He had a point.

"So have you opened it yet?" he asked.

"The note said I shouldn't."

"I'm impressed. I half-expected you to take it apart with tweezers and dust for fingerprints before calling. Aren't you dying to know what's inside?"

Bella could hear his excitement. His tone eased some of her fears even as it encouraged others. "The fact that you're so gleeful about the contents makes me think that I don't want to know what's inside." She wasn't sure that she liked this new, excited Edward. She didn't know how to handle him. She wanted to go back to the old, surly, low-key Edward. She knew what to do with him, alright. _Antagonize, antagonize, antagonize._ But she wasn't supposed to be doing that anymore, was she? _But she didn't want to betray too much of herself either._

"Open it!"

"Now? While I'm on the phone with you?" Bella thought Edward's behavior was a little ridiculous.

"Yes!"

She huffed. "Hold on." Putting the phone on speaker, she set it down and started tearing at the brown paper.

"Have you opened it yet?" Edward asked.

"I'm opening it now," Bella told him. "Stop being so—"

She froze. _That son of a bitch._

"Masen!" she hissed.

"What?" he chuckled.

"You know _what_. Why did you give this to me?" Bella was staring down at a vibrator.

"To use, obviously."

"I can't use this!" The words just tumbled out of her mouth, and she felt instantly foolish. _How did he do that to her? Piss her off to the point that she said stupid things?_

"Do you not know how? I can show you," Edward offered in a deceptively sweet tone.

"I don't want your help!"

"Well then you better figure it out on your own. Are you so easily corrupted that you're afraid of a mere _device_?"

"No!" _What a prick._

"Well then use it." Edward said it so calmly, like it was a logical, necessary step.

Bella didn't like the idea that he was telling her what to do. "Why should I?"

"That's the point isn't it? To see if you are susceptible to my corruption."

Bella hung up without another word.

 _Probably laughing his ass off right now,_ she thought. (And she was right.)

Bella shoved the _item_ into a drawer.

 _Who the fuck was he to think that he had the right to send her something like that? And why did he just assume that she didn't already own one?_

She didn't, in fact, own one already, but that was beside the point.

It occurred to Bella that if she died, someone would find the vibrator sitting there, in her drawer. Bella wouldn't have judged someone else for owning such an item—it was none of her business—but when it came to what other people would think of _Bella…_

Bella knew that other people were far more judgmental than her.

Besides, the possession of such an object suggested a lack of personal accountability, didn't it? Implying as it did that a person was so incapable of satisfying basic needs that she had need for such a thing.

That this was in and of itself a highly judgmental opinion did not sway Bella from it.

She hated her so-called gift.

She hated Edward.

The next day, Edward began what was to become a habit of texting her several times a day.

She was sitting in Dr. Volturri's office the first time it happened.

"Is that your phone Ms. Swan?"

"My phone?" Bella had inadvertently turned up the volume of her ringtone prior to the meeting, and since the phone was in Bella's bag, the noise was muffled, and she'd been hoping that Dr. Volturri hadn't noticed the annoying chime that signaled the receipt of a text, especially since Dr. Volturri was in the middle of a rant. "Umm, yes. I'm sorry."

"Please turn it off."

"I am," Bella said, bending over to fix it. "I'm sorry."

"It's quite disrespectful."

"I know. I'm sorry." But Bella's third apology didn't appear to be any more effective than her first two.

Dr. Volturri had been in the midst of explaining, yet again, the expectations for a dissertation candidate, never going so far as to say that Bella's work didn't meet said expectations, but the implications were clear enough.

Bella waited patiently for the lecture to wrap up to press for some clarifications. "So, I was hoping, what specifically— If you don't mind, if you might give me some specifics about what you don't like in my latest draft. Areas of potential improvement." Because, for the life of her, Bella had no idea what Dr. Volturri didn't like. To be honest, Dr. Volturri's comments had been so vague that Bella wasn't even sure that she'd read the draft.

"My dear, you can't expect me to do your work for you."

After a beat, Bella tried again. "Was there, I mean if there was any part of the draft that you thought was satisfactory, it would help me move in the right direction."

"Your citation style seemed to be in order."

"So I correctly formatted the footnotes?"

Dr. Volturri nodded.

And what the fuck could Bella say to that?

Walking out of Dr. Volturri's office, Bella decided to direct her frustration over the meeting where it (clearly) belonged: To the jerk who'd texted her in the middle of Dr. Volturri's rant.

Never mind that it was Bella's fault for forgetting to turn the phone to vibrate. She couldn't help feeling that Edward should share some of the blame, especially when she finally looked at his text and read: _Oh how they burn for intercourse, what cries declare their throbbing lust, how wet their legs with streaming juices!_

It would be something of an understatement to say that Bella was taken aback to find these words on her phone.

Edward had obviously picked up a translation for the volume of Latin poetry he'd purchased at the used bookshop.

That Edward's persistence was, in and of itself, annoying only added to Bella's pique.

(It was further fueled, by a secret, unacknowledged anger that she was _perhaps_ slightly interested, intrigued even, to find that he was going to this effort _for her._ )

Standing in the hallway outside Dr. Volturri's office, Bella typed out a quick reply: _What r u doing?_

Even though she knew exactly what he was doing. _Fucking with her,_ that was what he was doing.

Edward responded a moment later: _Getting u hot & bothered?_

Bella chose to ignore that. _Asshole._

She was at the library when she got his next text: _All night I had a mischievous girl whose wickedness no man can exhaust. Worn out by a million positions, I asked for more: before my request and before the first word, she gave me everything._

The smartass in Bella made her reply: _That's edited u know._

But Edward knew: _;) who knew u rd such filth?_

To which Bella hastily replied: _There's very little u know about me._

After a while he texted again: _But what things I'm learning._

It took Bella a minute to reply. She had to pull a book out of her bag to check the wording: _Cynthia prima suis miserum me cepit ocellis, contactum nullis ante cupidinibus tum mihi constantis deiecit lumina fastus et caput impositis pressit Amor._

She was hoping it would shut Edward up for a while, and indeed it did.

The translation? "Cynthia was the first to capture with her eyes my pitiable self: Till then I was free from desire's contagion. Love then forced me to lower my gaze of steady hauteur and trampled my head with his foot."

Bella sent it as a lark. She didn't consciously consider the implications of the game she was engaging in. Her old rivalry with Edward was to blame, or so she told herself, even though it was entirely different, wasn't it?

It took Edward a few minutes to get all of the Latin into Google Translate.

And it wasn't until the next day that he sent off his next text: _The same Cynthia who with bare nipples wrestled in a little bed blest by delights?_

Bella struggled with how to respond to that one. It was her own fault—she'd walked right into this.

Her response, when she sent it, sounded weak even to her: _Metaphor._

Edward's response was swift: _BAHAHAHAHA_.

The next day, Bella was in the middle of leading discussion when her phone vibrated on the podium next to her notes. Regretting her reliance on a phone rather than a watch to keep track of the time (there was no clock in the room), she saw Edward's name flash across the screen as a second text came through.

And then a third. And a fourth. And then a fifth.

Becoming increasingly flushed with the receipt of each text—even though she didn't stop to read them—Bella fumbled a few times in her talk. Not that her students minded, the sixteen young men and the lone young female in the classroom suddenly finding themselves much more interested in the system of Roman taxation than they ever would have expected. Or rather, it was their TA's obvious embarrassment over whatever was happening on her phone that was so amusing, providing a charming accompaniment to an otherwise dull lesson on economics. (Not that it was Bella's fault that the lesson was dull. The class of individuals who can be riveted by weights and measures are a rarified breed indeed.)

Bella somehow managed to recover, and she finished the discussion, doing her best to enliven a far from fascinating topic.

Packing up, she waited until the last of the students had departed the class before going outside, the rush of cool air on her flushed cheeks a relief as Bella took out her phone and read the series of texts:

 _How sweet it is to hear her voice quaver as she tells me the joy she feels, and to hear her imploring me to slacken my speed so as to prolong her bliss._

 _What do u think that ones' about?_

 _It COULDN'T be re: sex could it?!_

 _I'm sure it's just another metaphor…_

 _A metaphor re: premature ejaculation._

Despite the chill in the air, Bella felt her cheeks flushing anew. She was tempted—oh, how she was tempted!—she wanted to beat Edward at his own game.

So she typed out a text and sent it before she could second-guess herself: _Beware! Take heed lest, cramming on too much sail, you speed too swiftly for your mistress._

As Bella waited for Edward's reply, it suddenly occurred to her that she had gone too far. She didn't want to encourage him, did she?

 _Did she?_

Bella decided to turn off her phone. She told herself that it was only because she didn't want to use up the battery. Besides, she was due for her shift in the library, and there were clocks scattered between the stacks to help her keep track of the time.

When she finally turned her phone back on after her shift, Edward's text was waiting: _Nor should you suffer her to outstrip you. Speed on together towards the promised haven. The height of bliss is reached when, unable any longer to withstand the wave of pleasure, lover and mistress at one and the same moment are overcome._

Ovid's tips on synchronized orgasms.

Bella wondered whether it was reasonable for lovers to have expectations like that.

She'd always thought that Plato's allegory of a single soul split in half—male and female—was pretty enough: Lovers were just two halves of the same soul, rejoined.

But Bella she doubted that many couples were true partnerships.

They certainly weren't equal partnerships. At the best, she figured, most couples probably took turns at dominance and submission.

Edward's first text the following day was a question: _Did u know Peloponnesian War cut off supply of leather for dildos? And here u r, wasting a perfectly good vibrator…_

Bella did in fact know about the leather (and dildo) shortage.

She also knew that she shouldn't do it, but she still wanted to get the better of him. She texted back: _Some of us don't need artificial stimulation_.

It was a mistake. And Edward was onto her like a hound on a scent, demanding confirmation: _So u do self-serve?!_

Bella's reply was petulant and contradictory: _Didn't say that._

Edward wasn't taking that. _What gets u in mood?_

Feeling as if she'd lost control of the situation, Bella put her phone away. She was due for discussion, anyway.

Walking into class, she thought about asking one of the students to keep track of the time so that she could turn off her phone. But she didn't want to do that—it was hard enough moving quickly enough to cover all of the topics before the class time was up. So she just made herself ignore the way her phone kept vibrating as the texts came, one after the other.

She did better this time, not once stumbling as she went through her plodding explanation of tax farming, her students bored out of their minds and completely unaware that anything was out of sorts, utterly ignorant of the pornographic stream of sentences pouring into their TA's phone.

After class, Bella inconspicuously hid herself in a little alcove at the end of the hallway before pulling out her phone to read the texts, wary lest anyone observing her face somehow know the filthy things she was reading.

 _Go ahead and read those depraved pornographics of Musaeus, the ones that are filthier than the Sybaritic sex manuals._

 _His fingers stray deeper into her brush until her loins boil to a climax amid her screams._

 _She throws off the heavy covers so the lover hid in a closet may see but must wait in silence, impatient by the delay, and masturbate._

Suddenly, Bella wished then that she had not chosen such a secluded place to read the texts, the darkness like a curtain shielding her from the eyes of anyone who might judge, granting Bella tacit permission to—

To what?

Shoving her phone back into her purse, Bella hurried up to the TA's office on the top floor.

She was resolved to ignore the rest of Edward's texts.

And she succeeded, too, neither reading nor replying to a single one of Edward's messages for an entire day.

It drove Edward absolutely crazy.

When Edward's call finally came through, Bella debated about whether to answer it. But it would be childish to continue ignoring him.

"I'm not alone," she warned him. She was, in fact, sitting at her desk, but the only other person present was Jacob, and he wasn't easily offended. "So watch what you say."

Edward didn't mince words. "Why haven't you been texting me back?"

"I've been busy."

Edward didn't sound convinced, but he didn't dwell on the issue. "Have dinner with me Saturday?"

"I have to work on my prospectus."

"Just dinner. It's only a few hours."

When Bella didn't reply immediately, Edward added, "I'll stop texting you."

"Promise?"

He laughed. "No more _pornographic_ texts, at least."

"Fine."

"Don't sound too excited," Edward joked. "I'll pick you up at your place."

He told her when to expect him, then hung up, before she could back out.

In the days that followed, Bella continued to work on her prospectus. She went to her graduate seminar (on the Late Antique City), ran discussion, held office hours, shelved books in the library, and resurrected yet another dataset that an asshat coworker at the data entry center accidently deleted.

It occurred to Bella that since things were going so well with Edward right now—they were going _swimmingly_ , in fact, if Tanya was to be believed—she could consider cutting back on her workload.

But Bella didn't want to count on everything working out. She didn't want to count on Edward.

Or rather, Bella didn't really want to go through with her plan. She _wanted_ it to fall through.

And she couldn't help feeling guilty about that, because her father needed the money.

So, to alleviate her guilt, Bella was trying to pick up extra work. Every dime she could put towards her father's treatment was worth it.

Unfortunately, she couldn't get any more hours at the data entry center unless she went full time, and she couldn't go full time unless she quit school.

So she'd found work proofreading undergraduate term papers. As a result, she only got three hours of sleep that Thursday thanks to an assignment on the Industrial Revolution that seemed to leave a few students scrambling.

The following day, Friday, Bella hosted her first tutoring session. She'd found five sets of parents convinced that a knowledge of Latin was a vital and necessary addition to the lives of eleven and twelve year olds who'd rather be playing video games.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with kids learning Latin. It'll even help them learn the grammar that English teachers no longer bother with.

The problem with kids learning Latin is that they're kids learning Latin: They're only doing it because mommy and daddy want them to. And they're resentful as hell. The scapegoat for their animosity? The dumb-fuck tutor who's just doing this to make a couple of extra bucks.

Needless to say, it was a somewhat trying experience for Bella.

Saturday, she found herself walking two pit bulls, a German Shepherd, and three weimaraners. All at the same time.

For money, naturally. Bella liked dogs, but not enough to do something like that for free.

Fortunately, the animals all lived in the same apartment complex, and knew each other well, otherwise it would have been a recipe for disaster.

As it was, it was probably still a recipe for disaster, but Bella had always had a way with dogs and they seemed to like her in return.

Now, a single pit bull or German Shepherd can be more than a handful all on its own, but together, they can be a nightmare. Yet not these fellows, apparently. Bella paused at the edge of a particularly busy intersection to pat one of the pit bulls on the head.

Alas, Bella had counted her blessings too soon. Just as she reached the grass on the edge of campus, the German Shepherd began barking furiously and nearly ripped her shoulder out of the socket as he tugged at the leash.

It took Bella a moment to bring the pack to heel as she pulled the dogs away from the sidewalk.

Wondering what could have possibly set off the German Shepherd, Bella saw James on the sidewalk, watching her.

As the German Shepherd began a new round of barking and the pit bulls started growling softly, Bella wondered if she had bitten off more than she could chew by taking all of these dogs out at once.

James was clearly trying to say something, but ignoring him, Bella wrapped the leashes around her wrists, then bent over to look each of them in the eye as she shushed them.

When they'd settled a little, Bella spared James a glance, thoroughly aggravated but trying not to show it.

"What did you say?" she asked, having to raise her voice as the German Shepherd started barking again.

"The last quiz wasn't as easy as you said it'd be," James said.

 _Are you fucking kidding me?_ Bella thought. He couldn't be serious.

"What?" she asked. The German Shepherd finally stopped barking, but only because it had joined the pitbulls in growling, and the weimaraners were circling anxiously.

"The quiz. It wasn't as easy as you said."

 _Was this really happening?_ Bella grabbed the German Shepherd's collar and yanked him back.

"I can talk to you during my office hours, James."

Now Bella appreciated the fact that humans have a right to walk down the street without the danger of being mauled by rabid dogs. But she also assumed that any rational human being would understand that it didn't make sense to meddle with a pack of clearly hostile animals.

Bella gave up on James acting like any rational human. Turning, she told the dogs in no uncertain terms to 'come' and began hauling them across the grass. They obeyed, but they made it quite plain that they disagreed with this course of action by a lot of backward glances and soft growls (or yips, on the weimaraners).

It goes without saying that Bella probably made a mistake in assuming that she could handle that many dogs—and that mixture of dogs—her first time out. But the owners had insisted that the dogs be walked together.

And, in the dogs' defense, had they truly wished to tear off James' head, Bella couldn't have possibly stopped them. They were good dogs, though. They hadn't reacted to anyone else that way. They had drooled all over the joggers. They had virtually cooed over the tattooed sign spinner. And they had licked the giggling kids.

In fact, as soon as James was out of sight, they went back to their happy, tongue-lolling selves.

Bella returned the dogs to their owners without further incident and agreed to take them out again the following day.

In her opinion, dogs were good judges of character. And there was just something wrong with that James kid.

A few hours later, she was rushing back to her place. It was already after six, but she'd fallen asleep at her study carrel in the library.

Bella reached her apartment to find Edward already inside, sitting on her sofa, discussing what sounded like macaroni and cheese with her roommate.

"Sorry I'm late," Bella said as she came through the door.

"No problem," her roommate cackled, "just keeping sexy here entertained for you."

Noting a somewhat panicked expression pass over Edward's face at her roommate's words, Bella grabbed his arm and pulled him into her bedroom, not even noticing the way that she was manhandling him.

"I'm sorry," she said again, pushing him down so that he was sitting on her bed. "It'll just take me a minute to get ready."

"It's ok," Edward said, looking around with surprise.

He hadn't anticipated meeting Bella's roommate, or discussing the finer points of boxed macaroni and cheese (ketchup or no?). And he certainly hadn't anticipated finding himself in Bella's bedroom, sitting on her bed. But he was trying to play it cool.

"Just stay here until I get back," Bella instructed him, an outfit in her hands as she left, closing the door behind her.

 _Closing Edward in her bedroom_.

Really, Bella was just trying to keep Edward safe from her roommate. But she should have known that he wouldn't be able to resist the temptation to snoop.

Fortunately, he didn't have time to get far. She returned to find him flipping through a book.

"Ready?" Bella asked, eyeing the book in question.

"Yep," Edward answered distractedly.

Bella grabbed her purse and her gift for Edward. _Yes, she had a gift for him—tit-for-tat._ And she started for the door, only for Edward to let out a startled exclamation.

Alarmed by the noise, Bella spun around to look at him.

"What the hell is this?" he asked. "How long have you been collecting porn?"

Bella glanced down at the book and saw a series of lascivious frescoes from Pompeii on one page, and some sculptures on the other. "It's _art_ ," she told him.

"Christ Swan, if this is your art, not even Larry Flint would print your porn."

Bella rolled her eyes. He was blowing this completely out of proportion.

"You can't honestly expect me to believe that this book isn't porn," Edward argued.

"It holds a great deal of antiquarian interest," Bella informed him primly.

"'Antiquarian' my ass. What do grad students do? Sit up at night debating the historical significance of various sexual positions?"

"Maybe." Bella was in fact aware of such debates, but she chose to keep this knowledge to herself for the time being.

"You need to get laid."

"That's neither here nor there."

"Tell the truth. You get off looking at pictures like this."

"If that's true, I would think you'd be happy for me."

Edward laughed, returning the book to Bella's shelf. "Touche, Swan. Touche."

Bella peeked out of her room and was happy to see that her roommate was nowhere in sight. Grabbing Edward's arm, she tiptoed/ran to the front door and slipped out with Edward in tow.

"What's that?" Edward asked, noticing the parcel that Bella was carrying as he led her to his car.

"Your present." She had reused the brown paper from the vibrator to wrap her "gift."

"You got me a present?" Edward sounded ridiculously pleased by the prospect as he opened her door for her.

"You got me something, too. I'm just repaying the favor."

"I don't want you to have to spend money on me," Edward said.

Bella was surprised at his words, but she told herself that it didn't mean anything. They both knew what it was like to have nothing. He was just acknowledging reality. "I didn't, I promise." Bella had gotten the book, a duplicate of one she already owned, for free, thanks to a class she'd TAed for.

"You look tired," Edward said, once he'd started the car and pulled into traffic. He didn't mean to insult her, but she looked exhausted.

Bella was sensitive to comments about how she looked that evening. Not really knowing what Edward had in mind, she'd gone for office casual, with slacks and a blouse, and just a dusting of concealer and a light lipstick.

She decided to ignore the slight, if there was one. "I work a lot."

"You're a TA?"

"I do other things, too." Bella didn't want Edward to think that school was too much for her. He'd obviously made it through med school. She didn't want him to think that she couldn't hack it.

"Your dissertation?"

"And other jobs."

"Other jobs?"

Bella wondered if she should have kept her mouth shut about work. As it was, Angela and Jacob were always giving her crap for working at the library and the data entry center on top of her grad seminar and TAing. They thought that she was going to collapse from exhaustion. And they didn't even know about the new work she'd picked up.

"I don't want to talk about that," Bella said. "Sorry, I just want to relax now."

"I get that." He changed the subject. "So your roommate—"

"I'm sorry," Bella cut him off.

"You keep saying that."

"I didn't mean to leave you alone with her."

"She smokes." Edward's tone made it clear what he thought of that. And it wasn't good.

Bella inhaled sharply. "I know—I'm surprised that you haven't smelled it on my clothes by now."

Edward made a noise of disgust. "You don't smoke, do you?"

"No."

"Good." There was a note of finality to Edward's voice.

Bella was surprised that he was so opinionated on the subject. The truth was that Edward _hated_ smokers. It reminded him too much of his birth mother.

"Why don't you just move?" he asked, as he pulled into a parking lot.

"I have the worst luck. You wouldn't believe the roommates I've had. At least this one doesn't steal my shit." Bella recalled her roommate's reaction to the package arriving in the mail. "That I know of."

Turning off the car, Edward turned to Bella. "Wait for me to open your door, please."

"Why?" Bella felt wary.

"Because your corruption involves letting people do things for you. Being _hedonistic_ , remember. And because I want you to."

Bella narrowed her eyes. "Fine. But only because we made a deal. I won't like it," she warned.

Chuckling, Edward exited the car and ran around to her side. "Is it just me?" he asked, as he proffered a hand, which she pointedly ignored. "Do you let other people get the door for you?"

"If you don't do things for yourself, you forget how. And then you're helpless."

Edward wasn't sure about that, but he chose not to debate the issue, leading her inside a restaurant.

Bella felt a brief pang of anxiety when she saw the small dance floor and noted the soft music. But she tried to ignore it as the hostess seated them.

They went through the ritual of inspecting the menus and ordering, then Bella handed Edward the gift.

Edward held the parcel up to his ear.

"It's not a bomb," Bella said.

"Hmph." Edward tested the package's corners, bending the edge. "It's a book."

"I told you. Your corruption will involve reading."

"You gave me a Bible," Edward deadpanned.

"It is _not_ a Bible. Open it."

Edward quickly pulled off the wrapping and then paused, clearly perplexed. "Seneca?"

"Seneca the Younger."

"Am I supposed to know who that is?"

"He tutored Nero," Bella said.

"Awesome," he deadpanned.

"Don't try to sound _too_ excited."

"I gave you a _vibrator_ and you gave me a _book_."

"Shh!" Bella glanced around, and was relieved to see that no one appeared to have overheard Edward's comment. "If you want to throw in the towel now and admit that I'm the winner, that's fine with me. Don't read it."

"I'm not throwing in the towel."

"Alright then."

"Have you used the vibrator yet?" Edward asked. He obviously didn't care if they were overheard.

Bella glared at him and dropped her voice. "I've been busy."

"No one's that busy."

"I told you, I work a lot."

Edward wanted to call bullshit, but since Bella didn't want to talk about work, Edward opted to ask how her tattoo was healing.

"It's fine."

"Let me see it," Edward said.

"No!"

"Why not?"

"It's on my hip for a reason. I don't want people seeing it."

"Why get it if you can't see it?"

"I can see it plenty of the time."

"I'm a doctor. I just want to make sure it's healing properly." Which was bullshit. Edward was sure that the tattoo was doing just fine. But he'd developed a fascination with the trident on Bella's hip. He still hadn't figured out why she'd decided to get a trident, of all things.

"You won't leave me alone until I show you, will you?"

"Look, she can be taught."

Bella rolled her eyes. Since they were sitting in the corner, she was able to pull down the top edge of her dress slacks so that Edward could briefly see the tattoo without anyone noticing.

"What on earth are you wearing?" Edward asked, his forehead wrinkling.

"What do you mean?" Bella glanced down nervously. The slacks had only cost her four dollars at a thrift shop, but they weren't bad.

"That—that white thing."

"Underwear?" _What the hell was he talking about?_

"Did you steal them from my grandmother?"

" _Excuse_ me, it does its job. Don't be rude."

Abruptly changing the subject, Edward threw his napkin on the table. "Do you want to dance?" he asked, starting to rise.

"No," Bella shook her head vigorously.

"Why not?" he lowered himself back into his chair.

Edward had specifically chosen this restaurant with the intention of dancing.

"I don't dance," Bella replied.

"You danced for me already—at Alice's first happy hour."

"I wasn't myself that night."

"Who you were then?" Edward asked, jokingly.

"Someone other than myself."

"What are you afraid of?" Edward asked. "That you'll enjoy it?" He couldn't help taunting her.

"I'd probably fall on my face," Bella argued.

"I wouldn't let you."

"No," she said again.

"Why not?" He began to feel annoyed. All week, he had been worried that he was pushing her too hard, with the vibrator and the texts, but she'd met him, sally for sally. Now, she seemed afraid of him. That wasn't the Bella he knew. More importantly, it reminded him of the Bella he saw that night in Port Angeles.

"Come on," he said, pushing his memories away. "We made a deal."

"I think it would please you to see me incapacitated in some way," Bella told him truthfully. She felt like he'd had the better of her, all evening, and she was racing to keep up.

Instead of replying, Edward stood up and held out a hand. Rather than draw attention to their table by continuing to argue, Bella stood and headed for the dance floor, ignoring his hand.

But once they were out on the dance floor, Bella couldn't avoid Edward any longer.

She'd expected a jolt of—

Of something. Anything.

Instead, she felt nothing.

Oh, she was still nervous as hell, dancing— _dancing_ —with someone who'd once been her sworn enemy. Holding his hand and stumbling awkwardly as she tried to keep time with the music.

Fortunately, the other couples out on the floor appeared to be too preoccupied with each other to give Bella too much attention.

But the intellectual effort required to keep up with Edward's footwork, kept Bella too distracted, for the most part, to think about anything else.

"Whatever you're trying to do," Bella warned Edward, "it's not working." She kept her eyes steadily on Edward's left shoulder.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Whatever this is, it's not working."

"Dancing?" he tried a fancy twirl, and Bella tripped over her feet but managed to stay upright, her grip on his shoulder tightening.

Bella had already grabbed his arm twice that night—dragging him into her room and then hurrying him out of her apartment—but he'd been wearing a jacket. Now she could feel the subtle definition of muscles under his dress shirt.

"What do you think I'm trying to do?" Edward swung her in a slow, wide arc this time, his hands resting lightly on her hips.

"Make me feel stupid, because I can't dance."

Edward immediately slowed, the fancy footwork (fancy, at least, in Bella's eyes) coming to an end. "I'm not trying to do that."

"Well whatever else it is that you're trying to do, it won't work either."

"What else am I trying to do?" Edward asked, knowing damn well that she knew the answer.

"Tear down my defenses. It doesn't matter though."

"Why not?"

"There are no breaks in my walls and I'm built on solid concrete. There won't be any tunnels or traitors to unlock the gates."

"If you're so solidly built," Edward pointed out, "it won't do you harm to lose control."

Just then Bella accidentally stepped on Edward's foot.

Edward toned the footwork down even more, settling on a simple step-step-sway maneuver. He only knew how to dance because of Alice. She loved Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies, and she'd forced both of her brothers to practice with her. He'd put up with it merely to satisfy his parents.

Of course, dancing served a social function, fulfilling obscure demands regarding civil engagement. But in Edward's opinion, dancing was best used for the purposes of seduction. The synchronized movement of intertwined limbs, the implied coordination of stimulated muscles, and the (temporary) denial of desire, it was an exercise in delayed gratification. Of course, dancing was rarely used to that end, but it was Edward's belief that it was the original function of such displays. It was a practice run, of a sort, meant to demonstrate a potential mate's suitability.

Not that Edward was trying to impress Bella, _per se_. He was simply trying to push her into trying something new.

That she wasn't comfortable dancing was clear. Remembering how Bella had given him a lap dance, it was something of a surprise to find Bella suddenly so awkward. The difference between that Bella and the one currently in his arms was striking.

She was thinking too much, he could tell. That was her problem. She was always thinking. She needed to _experience_.

Staring at her feet, Bella was shaking her head. "Why should I lose control?" she asked, replying to his comment after a moment's silence. "I think that what you really want isn't just for me to lose control but for me to let you control me."

Edward had to give it to Bella, she wasn't an idiot. "Maybe you're right."

"You say that I think too much," she continued, speaking his thoughts out loud as she met his gaze. "That I'm too much in control. As if I can just turn it off."

"You can."

Bella shook her head. "But I'm a whole person. Mind and heart and body. I can't just turn one part off. Saying I can is just some bullshit Cartesian mind/body dualism."

"Decartes? _I think therefore I am?_ " Edward guessed."What's wrong with him?"

"Feminists hate mind/body dualism."

"I didn't know that." Edward had never really thought about it.

"It's because of two thousand years of men saying that we're irrational. Like we don't have brains."

"Oh, I _know_ you have a brain."

"And I can't just turn it off," Bella said, ignoring the bait. "I know you probably don't believe in love, but if you don't want to be with some intellectually—because you love them or because you want to reproduce with them because they have the best genes or whatever—are you supposed to just turn your brain off? How? Men have said for millennia that women are the ones ruled by our bodies, but really, it's men."

Edward wasn't sure about that.

Oh, he was sure that men were ruled by his bodies. But he wasn't sure about _love_.

It wasn't that he didn't _believe_ in love, _per se_. Carlisle and Esme certainly seemed passionate enough about each other.

But Carlisle claimed that he'd once loved Edward's mother (before the drugs and everything else). Edward was pretty sure that was just some crap Carlisle was peddling to make himself feel better about his son's conception. But either way it kind of undercut the whole mystique around love, because if you can love a fucked up person like Victoria, then what's love really worth?

And to be honest, Carlisle's relationship Esme sometimes seemed too nauseatingly perfect to seem plausible.

In any case, if there really was such a thing as love, Edward was fairly certain that it wasn't meant for him.

Not that that had anything to do with Bella.

Edward cleared his throat. "Those pictures in that book I was looking at tonight, at your place—"

"In the _art book_ ," Bella reminded him.

"In that _porn_ catalog," Edward corrected. "You don't think that the people in the pictures were attractive?"

Not sure where Edward was headed, Bella tried to gauge his expression. "Define 'attractive.'"

"Some of the drawings were pretty crude. But the sculptures were very lifelike. The models looked like athletes. They weren't exactly ugly."

Bella nodded. "Perfection of form. Or, really, mathematical symmetry. It was a very Greek thing."

"How do you know that the people in the sculptures are attractive? Is it your brain telling you that? Based on instinctual reactions to mathematical proportions or something? Or is it something else?"

Bella wondered where he was going with this.

"Can't you just be attracted to physical beauty?" Edward asked. "Have a visceral, physical reaction to physical beauty? Isn't that enough to inspire desire?"

Suddenly, Edward's argument made sense to Bella. "And that's it?" she scoffed. "A pretty face is all it takes?"

Edward hitched a shoulder.

"What do all of the ugly people do then?" Bella asked.

"Well, that's not your problem."

"Bullshit."

"So you have to be attracted to someone intellectually _and_ physically, the whole shebang? You don't have sex until you're in love?"

"It doesn't work that way either. How do you know if you're in love with someone until you have sex with them?"

Surprised by her response, Edward pressed his lips together, suspecting that he was being set up.

"Could you love someone who was terrible in bed?" Bella asked.

Edward was _sure_ that he was being set up, but he ventured a response. "It would be difficult."

"Then you can't really know that you love a person until you have sex with them. And you can't have sex with them until you love them. It's a contradiction in terms."

Edward studied Bella's face. She looked entirely sincere.

"So let me get this straight," he said. "You can't have sex with someone, because you don't know if you love them, and you can't know whether or not you love them until you have sex with them?"

She nodded.

"So you just don't have sex at all?" he confirmed.

She nodded again.

He shook his head. "Deny it all you want, but I know you're just dying to try some of the positions in those frescoes."

 **AN: Sorry for the delay. RL. Will reply to reviews ASAP.**

 **Please note that I have nothing against smokers,** _ **per se**_ **. That's Edward's hang-up, not mine.**

 **For the sculptures in the art book, Google Praxiteles and for the frescoes, see the Wikipedia article on Erotic art in Pompeii.**

 _All night I had a mischievous girl whose wickedness no man can exhaust. Worn out by a million positions, I asked for more [anal sex]: before my request and before the first word, she gave me everything. –_ Martial9.67 translated by Tom Garner on liberlatinus dot wordpress dot com

"Oh how they burn for intercourse, what cries declare their throbbing lust, how wet their legs with streaming juices!" Juvenal on wives translated by Hubert Creekmore

 _Cynthia prima suis miserum me cepit ocellis, contactum nullis ante cupidinibus tum mihi constantis deiecit lumina fastus et caput impositis pressit Amor._ Cynthia was the first to capture with her eyes my pitiable self: Till then I was free from desire's contagion. Love then forced me to lower my gaze of steady hauteur and trampled my head with his foot. Propertius 1.1 translated by W. G. Shepherd

 _O You little bed made blest by my delights! How much we told each other by lamplight, how great our strife when the light was removed! For now with bare nipples she wrestled me, And now procrastinated, tunic closed._ Propertius 2.15 translated by W. G. Shepherd

 _How sweet it is to hear her voice quaver as she tells me the joy she feels, and to hear her imploring me to slacken my speed so as to prolong her bliss. How I love to see her, drunk with delight, gazing with swooning eyes upon me, or, languishing with love._ Ovid _Art of Love_ translated by J. Lewis May

 _Learn, by skillful dallying, to reach the goal by gentle, pleasant stages…Then will follow gentle moanings mingled with murmurings of love, soft groans and sighs and whispered words that sting and lash desire! But now beware! Take heed lest, cramming on too much sail, you speed too swiftly for your mistress. Nor should you suffer her to outstrip you. Speed on together towards the promised haven. The height of bliss is reached when, unable any longer to withstand the wave of pleasure, lover and mistress at one and the same moment are overcome._ Ovid _Art of Love_ translated by J. Lewis May

 _Go ahead and read those depraved pornographics of Musaeus, the ones that are filthier than the Sybaritic sex manuals._ Martial 12.95 translated by Joseph Salemi

 _His fingers stray deeper into her brush until her loins boil to a climax amid her screams._

Juvenal 413 translated by Hubert Creekmore

 _She throws off the heavy covers so the lover hid in a closet may see but must wait in silence, impatient by the delay, and masturbate._ Juvenal 231 translated by Hubert Creekmore


	12. Chapter 12

**Warning: Brief reference to rape in the context of Greek myth.**

 **Also, be prepared for a (potentially) boring lecture on Greek myth and political theory. (It's interesting, dammit!)**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

" _Thus the god and the nymph sped on, one made swift by hope and one by fear; but he who pursued was swifter, for he was assisted by love's wings. He gave the fleeing maiden no respite, but followed close on her heels, and his breath touched the locks that lay scattered on her neck, till Daphne's strength was spent, and she grew pale and weary with the effort of her swift flight…'O father,' she cried, 'help me!'…Her prayer was scarcely ended when a deep languor took over her limbs, her soft breast was enclosed in thin bark, her hair grew into leaves, her arms into branches, and her feet that were lately so swift were held fast by sluggish roots, while her face became the treetop. Nothing of her was left, except her shining loveliness. Even as a tree Phoebus loved her._ " – Ovid, _Metamorphoses_ translated by Mary Innes (Phoebus is a nickname for Apollo, a Greek god who became obsessed with the nymph Daphne and chased her through the woods, Daphne called out to her father [another deity, I think] for help, and her father turned her into a tree to "save" her, afterwards the tree she was turned into remained sacred to the god Phoebus/Apollo)

Chapter 12

Bella had become a wanton creature. She indulged in self-pleasure, which was not so new for her, but the context was certainly new.

For Bella had become a pornographer.

And it was all because of Edward.

Not content with his gift of the vibrator, Edward had sent Bella several pairs of bra and panty sets from La Perla.

Now, Bella actually already possessed several pairs of bra-panty sets from this particular retailer, gifts from her fairy godmother. But Bella hadn't yet deigned to try any of them on. Still toying with the idea of backing out of her deal with Tanya, Bella wanted to be able to return the clothes she didn't wear.

Of course, things were currently working out with Edward, so that it very much looked as if Tanya's little plot with Bella was proceeding as planned.

Nevertheless, Bella had no intention of wearing her "gifts," whether they came from Tanya or Edward. Aside from her personal disinclination to make use of such poisoned fruit, the garments Edward had supplied looked as if they would be exceedingly uncomfortable.

Bella wasn't surprised by that. It made sense to her that Edward would get a kick out of causing her discomfort. He certainly took pleasure in sending her all of those inappropriate texts. Sometimes, it seemed almost like they were back to their old ways, trying to aggravate each other solely for the joy of irritating one another.

But it was different.

There was an undercurrent of something else. Bella couldn't quite put a name to it.

They weren't friends.

After all, Bella had an ulterior motive in pursuing this little game with Edward. She fully intended to use him. (That is, if she didn't back out at the last minute.)

And Bella certainly knew better than to trust Edward's intentions. He couldn't have changed all that much. He claimed that this project of "corrupting" her was really in her best interests, but Bella knew better than to fall for that patronizing bullshit. Still—

They weren't enemies.

Or were they?

What if Edward was playing Bella just like she was playing him?

She was so confused. The Edward she knew now was so much like the old Edward, with his cruel little asides, and yet he was clearly going out of his way to—

To what? Be _nice_?

 _Strange way of being nice._

But every once in a while, he seemed genuinely thoughtful, as if he was actually angry that an adviser would send her to Breaking Dawn or that she would risk getting a tattoo in less than sanitary conditions. (And Bella couldn't help remembering a few weeks, back when they were teenagers, when they weren't exactly enemies.)

Then he would ruin it again with one of his little patronizing remarks.

Suffice it to say, Bella found herself questioning her assumptions.

The dancing, for instance, had thrown Bella for a loop. Edward didn't mock her even once, despite the fact that she obviously didn't know what she was doing. And when she asked him how he'd learned, he had just shrugged t off, saying something about Alice.

It surprised Bella to hear that Edward would put up with Alice pestering him into dancing. The Edward that Bella had known back in high school was such an asshole. Selfish and mean, even to his own family.

And Bella had hated him for it. A secret part of her yearned to experience the kind of affection the Cullens clearly felt for each other. Bella loved her own father, naturally, but he wasn't exactly affectionate. So the way that Edward seemed to cast his family's feelings away so callously used to just enrage Bella. She was so very jealous of what he had.

Of course, all of that was more or less water under the bridge now, but Bella still felt at a disadvantage compared to Edward. He had so many things that she hadn't. Money. A job. And, apparently, dancing skill.

Fueled, in part, by her old sense of rivalry, Bella took Edward's dancing ability as something of a challenge. She didn't like having to rely on him in dancing or anything else. So in the days that followed their "outing," Bella had looked up some simple dance steps online and she was practicing. She was bound and determined to beat him at his own game.

But it turned out that he was one step ahead of her. Again.

When Bella saw Jacob directing the Fed Ex guy to her desk, Bella felt a vague misgiving. Who'd be sending her a Fed Ex at school?

Edward. That was who.

Bella signed for the package, but she wasn't very eager to open it—Jacob was watching her with unveiled curiously—and she was even less eager to do so once her phone pinged with an incoming text.

When she saw Edward's request, a furious Bella typed out a stern refusal. _No!_

Edward, who knew that was what she would say, nevertheless requested an explanation. _Y not?_

She _knew_ he was just f'ing with her! She _knew_ that she should just ignore him!

But she had a perfectly good reason to refuse his request, and she wasn't going to let it go to waste. Bella typed out her reply and hit 'send' with a sense of vindication: _& risk pics going public?_

Didn't Edward know how easy it was to hack someone's phone? Bella had no interest in seeing lewd pictures of herself all over the internet. _She wanted to be a teacher for God's sake!_ She couldn't afford to be _exposed_ like this!

For his part, Edward knew damn well that his gift of the bra and panty sets would do nothing but collect dust if he didn't take drastic measures. Assuming (correctly) that Bella had scorned his gift, Edward had Fed Ex'ed Bella a set at school (he found the location of her "office" and her office hours on the school website). And he had arranged an email to be sent to him upon delivery, so that he knew exactly when she signed for them. Now he just needed proof that she'd put them on, hence his text requesting that she send him a picture of herself wearing said undergarments.

Edward realized that Bella could very well change back out of the undergarments after sending him the picture, but he hoped that in the brief time she was wearing them, that she'd come to discover how much she enjoyed the feel and texture—the simple pleasure of wearing such items—and that she'd leave them on, after all.

But Edward had to admit that Bella had a point when it came to sending an image of herself via text. He replied with a compromise. _No face._

 _This is it,_ Bella thought. _Either I'm going to move forward with the Tanya's plan or I'm out, for good_.

Because this— _this—_ had been Bella and Tanya's plan all along, hadn't it? Getting Edward interested…

But Bella had never really expected to make it even this far.

This wasn't like her.

If not for the deal, Bella would tell Edward to go to hell. She was only playing this game because she had an ulterior motive. But could Bella really go through with it?

 _Get a grip_ , a voice inside of Bella argued. _It's just a picture. You can still back out later._

Just one picture. It didn't have to lead to anything.

Bella dropped her phone on her desk and picked up her pen. She had been in the middle of grading quizzes.

But she couldn't concentrate. She kept thinking of her father, lying in a hospital bed, gasping for breath.

 _Fuck it!_ Bella thought. She grabbed the Fed Ex box and her phone and marched down the hallway to the bathroom.

 _What the hell am I doing?_ she wondered. _Really?_

Across town, a physician was currently asking himself the same question. _What the hell am I doing?_ Edward wondered, staring down at his phone, waiting for Bella to tell him to fuck off.

There was, first of all, his strange obsession with Bella. Yes, he was self-aware enough to realize that it was turning into an obsession. Dragging her out of Breaking Dawn was one thing, but he crossed a line when he went into that bookshop. And now this wager with Tanya!

Not that it was a real wager. He had no intention of seeing Tanya again, but she'd put the idea into his head.

No, that was a lie. Tanya had just pushed him into admitting a subconscious fascination—

That was it, a _fascination_. Edward was _fascinated_ by Bella, by what she represented. The woman, who as a teenager was his worst nemesis, always calling him out on his bullshit, when everyone else was giving him a pass. Bella, who was suddenly back in his life, suddenly showing up at Breaking Dawn, just as Edward was trying to cut all ties with the place.

Edward just wished—

What?

That Bella, of all people, would give him a pat on the head and tell him that he was doing a good job? That he was recovering from his addiction—an addiction that he hadn't even admitted to her or to anyone else?

It was impossible.

But he wanted it.

At the same time, God help him, he couldn't help wondering, _What if—_

Because Edward knew what had happened to Bella in Port Angeles. He knew about Bella's mother. Yet Bella herself remained an enigma.

She clearly hadn't forgotten the past, and yet she was back in the Cullens' lives.

She had given Edward a lap dance, only to regret doing so almost instantly.

She had wandered into Breaking Dawn, for a fucking school project.

She had gotten a tattoo of a trident, for reasons Edward couldn't possibly fathom.

And she'd accepted his proposal.

He still didn't know what the hell he really meant with that. He was an addict, sure. He was addicted to sex. But surely a person who avoided sex altogether was no better. Extremists, both.

Not that Edward had any proof that Bella really was a virgin.

And there it was again—the strange fascination with her. Yes, strange, because he _knew_ that those pornographic texts of his were crossing a line. He _knew_ that those gifts of his were crossing a line. But he used to cross lines all of the time. It was part of his addiction. He used to play games like this with Tanya and other women.

It was just harmless flirtation.

No, not flirtation, because Edward wasn't really coming onto Bella. They had a bet. That was all.

He didn't mean anything by it.

And Bella was wrong. She was wrong, goddammit. Her, up there, in her ivory tower, looking down on him (he _knew_ that she was looking down on him). He would just prove that she was wrong. She'd agree with him—admit that she was too much of a prude, and that it was unhealthy—and that would be it.

He wouldn't take it any further.

He had already proven himself, hadn't he? Taking Bella out for dinner and dancing. _Just dancing_. Just plain, ordinary dancing. Just like dancing with Alice.

And if the feel of Bella's hips under his fingers was distracting, if the sway of her form against his was more _interesting_ than he would have expected, it was only because Edward had gone so very long without sex. He was getting desperate.

 _But never mind what Tanya said_ , Edward told himself. _I don't need to have sex with Bella._

In fact, Edward believed that his observation of this hard line when it came to Bella would prove that he was recovering from his addiction. It would prove that he didn't need to have sex with every woman.

 _Never mind that the very fact that I'm thinking of Bella in this context meant that I'm already so far past the point of—_

But this was _Bella_. Edward had never thought of her that way. And he certainly wasn't going to start doing so now.

Nope.

Then there was the gross absurdity of expecting Bella to comply with his request. _What the hell am I thinking?_ Edward asked himself.

Nevertheless, he continued to stare at his phone, waiting.

Bella was shaking her head at herself as she went into one of the stalls and began disrobing.

 _What the hell are you doing?_ she asked herself again.

 _You're sticking it to that jerk_ , Bella told herself. She was sure that Edward was off somewhere, congratulating himself for manipulating her into doing just what he wanted her to do. _But what does he know?_ Edward was the one being played, not the other way around.

 _Still._

Reminding herself of the end goal, again, Bella nevertheless felt a little absurd, sliding the straps of the silky black bra that Edward had sent over her shoulder. _What does it matter what kind of bra a person wears if the point is to just take it off again?_

A secret, unacknowledged part of her, felt a little sleazy, too. But Bella pushed all of that out of her mind. _Just you_ , she thought. _It's just you, and no one else_. She had changed in this bathroom lots of times, and this time wasn't any different.

And looking down at herself, Bella couldn't help but admit liking the way that the shiny black material of the bra contrasted against her pale skin. In fact, her skin almost looked as if it was glowing, even under the ugly fluorescent lighting.

Not that there was anything in the least bit sexy about this bathroom, despite the fact that it was preferred over the men's bathroom by grad students looking for a quickie.

Having slipped on the panties, Bella held up the phone, and turned side-to-side, trying to decide on the best shot, wanting to keep her new tattoo out of the picture (too identifiable). Before she could change her mind, she took the picture and, with a cursory glance to ensure that the woman in the picture really was unidentifiable, she sent it off, her pulse racing.

The rush of adrenaline receding, Bella was left with just her anxiety. Her fingers were shaking as she pulled the text back up and stared at it.

Good God, what had she done?

Little did she know that a physician sitting in a break room of the nearby hospital had nearly the same sentiment running through his head: _Good God, what has she done?_

Edward had expected a refusal. He'd expected more prevarication.

What he didn't expect was an actual picture.

And, on the off-chance that a picture did come, he certainly didn't expect to have such a violent reaction.

The picture was strangely vulgar and titillating. Or rather, its vulgarity made it strangely all the more titillating. Like those "pornographic" black and white postcards from the 1930s of women in matronly, cone-like white bras and complicated cantilever-style panty sets, the otherwise staid imagery enhancing the essentially lascivious nature of the content.

Edward could tell that Bella had taken the picture in a bathroom, pipes running down the back wall of the photo, and he could see that it made sense—where else could she take a picture like that during the day—but the fact that she was stripping and taking pictures (or at least _one_ picture of herself— _were there others?_ ) in a bathroom, in a building filled with her co-workers and professors, with students just walking up and down the halls, any one of whom could have walked in on her—

Well, presumably they couldn't have just walked in on her. She was, Edward assumed, standing behind a locked door. But Edward couldn't help wondering how secluded this bathroom was. He knew, from his own experience, what it was like to be walked in on at work while in the midst of _coitus_. He knew the rush of excitement, the fear of discovery. He knew what it was like to have sex against exposed pipes, he knew the tacky dampness of cool tiles against his flesh, the rough texture of the brickwork against fingers desperate to find purchase.

Against that industrial, dirty backdrop Bella's skin seemed to glow. Edward told himself that it was just his imagination—skin was skin, flesh was flesh—and Bella wasn't even fully nude. But the few scraps of material just made it all the more scintillating, didn't it? That Edward was denied certain sights, despite the fact that he could imagine very well what lay there, made it all the more _fascinating_. The juxtaposition of such modesty against the sheer vulgarity of the bathroom, the vulgarity of the text itself, was more stimulating than Edward would have ever imagined.

It was everything: The black silk shining above the smooth contours of Bella's stomach, the pop of a hip bone set off by the black strap of the panties, like snow, the grainy quality of the picture (the product of Bella's cheap phone) making the contrasts stand out so sharply, like Technicolor—

So now Edward was picturing a 1940s pin-up—

Though part of him couldn't help wishing that the image was actually in black and white—

And then, out of nowhere, Edward was suddenly wondering about the bra and panty set that Bella had no doubt worn to school that day. He was sure she'd opted for the matronly-style he'd spied at the restaurant. And he was sure that the simple, faded cotton put on display in such a wanton context would have been ever so much more suggestive of transgression—

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

That first time, Bella could only stand to look at the picture she'd taken of herself for a minute. She deleted the picture from her phone along with the text and quickly redressed.

She left on Edward's lingerie, but only because she wanted to get out of the bathroom and away from the scene of her mistake— _yes, mistake_ —as soon as possible.

Alas, the sensation of the unfamiliar fabric rubbing against her skin throughout the rest of the day was a reminder of her mistake.

Bella was sure that she'd erred in thinking that Edward's request was evidence that he was falling in line with Tanya's plans. There was no way that he was interested in Bella _like that_. Instead, he was probably off somewhere laughing at her.

She was the last person who should be sexting anyone.

So, the next day, when Edward texted her in the middle of lecture demanding a picture of that day's ensemble, Bella panicked. She'd worn her own clothes again, not imagining that he'd want a repeat performance.

And she was angry at herself for falling for his ruse the first time. _How could I have sent him a picture like that?_ she asked herself.

Thus she was surprised by the repeat request.

Just six little words: _Can I c what ur wearing?_

Not one peep out of Edward about the previous day's picture, and yet here he was, requesting another one. Like it was nothing. Like it was the new normal.

 _Fuck that_.

And yet, Bella was conflicted. Theoretically, she had enough time before her shift started at the data entry center to go home and change.

But why should Bella put herself through that? Her little deal with Tanya aside, Edward's behavior was juvenile and idiotic. _As if he actually thought the mere sensation of lingerie against Bella's skin would drive her headlong into "corruption."_

Yet every time Bella thought about ignoring Edward's request, she remembered her father's hospital bills. And she thought about the hours she'd already spent that day in the library re-shelving books. She thought about the hours she was going to spend that night at the data entry center. She thought about her tutoring session the next day. She thought about the six hours of sleep she'd gotten that night and just how tired she was.

She was exhausted, mentally and physically.

She needed a fucking break.

She needed her deal with Tanya to work out.

So Bella went home after class and put on the bright blue bra and panty set.

And then, because Bella thought it would be kind of funny (in a really fucked up and horrible way) and because Bella kind of hated Edward for asking her to do this, she took the vibrator out of its package and started pulling books off of her shelves. She tossed the volumes onto the bed and crawled right in with them.

 _What a mess of my books I've made,_ she thought _. What a mess of my life._

Bella grabbed the vibrator in one hand, her phone in the other.

 _That son-of-a-bitch_ , she thought, picturing Edward's face. _It's all his fault_ , she thought unfairly— _unfairly_ , because _Bella_ was the one who'd made this deal with Tanya, Bella had _asked_ for this—and the surge of anger centered her.

The picture showed an unidentifiable woman rolling around in books, a vibrator pressed against the center of her panties.

But it wasn't Bella who took that picture. Or rather it wasn't a _Bella_ that Bella would have recognized.

It was the Bella who wanted something from Edward Cullen. And she was going to take it goddammit.

Bella sent off the picture, and dropped the vibrator without turning it on or really even inspecting it. She turned her phone off, not wanting to see Edward's response, because _fuck him_.

Bella was still so angry. Angry at Edward for requesting the picture, for falling for _her_ ruse, for buying Bella's bullshit about wanting to reconnect with the Cullens, like there was nothing in it for her—

Not that she felt guilty about what she was doing. Why shouldn't she have whatever she wanted? Why shouldn't she just take it?

And what she wanted was _pleasure_. She wanted it just as much as everyone else, and she knew damn well that she was the only one who could be trusted to provide it.

Lying there against those books, Bella closed her eyes. She slid a hand under the edge of her bra and tweaked a nipple.

Her other hand slipped beneath her panties, the spines of the books biting into her back as her fingers dipped into her folds.

Bella's pleasure belonged to _her_ , no one else.

She would wear Edward's clothes and send him his pictures, but he didn't know her.

If anyone was doing the corrupting, it was Bella.

Bella's breath quickened as her back arched off the bed.

And Edward could fuck off if he thought that he could put her in a box. _Bella_ was the one who decided what, if anything, Edward got to see in those pictures. Besides, those pictures weren't really for him. They were for _her_ pleasure. _Her_ enjoyment.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Edward was choking to death on a sandwich.

Once he recovered, Edward studied the picture that had caused his brush with death.

If years of repression were responsible for the image currently gracing the screen of Edward's phone, then Edward wondered if there might be a value to asceticism after all.

But Edward had a goal in sight and he wasn't going to back down.

Of course, part of him wondered if Bella was just trying to get a rise out of him, no pun intended. Edward wondered if Bella was trying to mock him with these photos. If she was going out of her way to make some point, trying to teach him that a person needn't be a hedonist to be tantalizing. If so, she'd made a mistake.

 _Well, try and let her get under my skin_ , he thought. He was sure that she couldn't keep it up (pun again not intended).

He was wrong.

Edward began texting Bella every day with requests for visual proof that she was indeed availing herself of his gift of lingerie. Afraid that Bella would simply take a series of pictures all at once, then send the stored pictures off one at a time, Edward arranged for a different flower to be delivered to Bella each day. Bella was supposed to hold the flower in the picture as a sort of proof of life. But Bella's schedule was too erratic for convenient delivery. So Edward had to settle for sending flowers to her office at school three days a week and occasionally to her home address. Nevertheless, the ploy was a success, at least in Edward's opinion, because it provided yet another opportunity for Bella to show off her creativity. A daisy jutted over her hip with the stem stuck in the strap of her yellow panties. An orchid bloomed from her cleavage as she leaned forward (just enough) in a purple lace number. A tiger lily skimmed the apex of her thighs, her legs stuck in a saucy pose for a bright orange ensemble. A pink carnation barely covered the skin exposed by pulling down one cup of a light pink bra, the strap dangling around Bella's elbow drawing Edward's eye again and again.

The photos on the days where there was no delivery of flowers, the pictures were no less inventive. At first, it was just a fingertip disappearing under the edge of a cup or a tug at the strap of her panties. A copy of Sappho hid her face in another shot. She was leaning against a tall stack of volumes by Ovid, Apuleius, Petronius, Achilles Tatius, Longus, Catullus, and Juvenal in yet another, or else a whole hand had disappeared inside her panties.

One of Edward's favorites, though, was a simple shot of Bella holding a yellow primrose across her stomach—sent when, unbeknownst to him, Bella was feeling particularly low, uncertain about continuing to pursue this game with Edward, worn out from a double-shift at the library and discouraged by an email from Dr. Volturi.

Fortunately, Bella didn't have to see witness Edward's reaction firsthand. He would occasionally send a reply, a comment on the positioning of the flower, but Edward was wary of doing or saying anything that would make Bella have second-thoughts about her photos.

And he was wise to show caution, for Bella was growing increasingly wary of the prospect of facing him again, of seeing him face-to-face after the pictures she'd sent him. But that didn't hold her back from trying to come up with ever more inventive poses.

The delay between Edward's daily request for a picture and the receipt of the image became for Edward a new and unexpected sort of torture. Edward varied the timing of his request, wanting to take Bella off of her guard, and he wished that he could be there, to see her reaction firsthand as she received one of his texts. He wondered if she'd give herself away, if people could tell what she was thinking, by the pace of her breathing or the tint of her cheek, and if they could tell that she was thinking of him, of what she was readying herself to do.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Edward was sitting lakeside, watching a collection of swans as they skimmed across the water, damp fog obscuring the far edges of the lake so that Edward saw only black glassy water and white birds under a pearl colored sky.

It was perfectly quiet, only the occasional flapping of wings and accompanying splash to disturb the early morning peace as the birds began converging towards the center of the lake, white upon white, feathers fanning over the water, drops sprinkling in their wake. Smaller birds glided in and out of the group. A wing rose above the rest, and then a slim piece of flesh flashed into view.

Leaning forward on his rock, Edward strained to see more clearly.

He glimpsed a coil of mahogany hair curling down around a long pale bird's neck.

Edward stood abruptly, and treading along the very edge of the water as the fog thickened, he saw the birds starting to disperse, leaving a solitary swan alone in the center of the lake.

Edward held his breath as the bird turned to look directly at him. He spied the pale curve of a cheek, the outline of a nose behind a curtain of hair.

And then he saw another slip of skin against the feathers.

Bella was draped across the back of the massive bird, her fingers stroking the feathers at the base of the bird's neck.

Edward watched as Bella raised an arm gracefully overhead, sparking drops of water showering over her.

He woke, confused and anxious and strangely aroused and inexplicably jealous.

It was a few minutes before he remembered the myth: The Greek god Zeus had supposedly turned himself into a swan and carried off a maiden.

It was Bella's fault, of course. It was her fault that Edward was dreaming such perverted things. She was the one studying antiquity, after all, the Greeks and their fetishes.

A good little ascetic like her had no business messing about with the histories of such bawdy cultures.

Her chosen field of study was no doubt a subconscious backlash against her self-imposed repression.

And as for why Edward would dream of Bella in such a context, well, this could be put down to the increasingly salacious nature of their exchanges.

Not that he missed her. That would be going too far.

But Edward had been disappointed when Bella had told him that she had to work and wouldn't be able to make Alice's last happy hour.

It was just a dream. It didn't mean anything.

Even if Edward spent the entire day, thinking about it.

And when Edward came across a flier that afternoon as he cut across the edge of the university campus on the way to lunch, he almost called Bella right and then and there to demand an explanation.

Surely she ought to have told him about this.

But then Edward realized how ridiculous that sounded. So instead, he just made plans to go to the lecture the next day. He wouldn't tell Bella. He would just show up.

Unfortunately, Edward was late leaving work the next day, and Bella had already started speaking by the time that Edward slipped into the back of the auditorium.

He tried not to make too much noise as he found a seat and settled back.

Bella seemed not to notice his arrival as she lectured from the front of the darkened auditorium: "Real or imagined processions continued throughout the space of the _polis_."

Such dry material offered a strange counterpart to the image currently displayed on the screen: A grinning satyr with a massive, erect penis.

As if completely unaware of the vulgar nature of the display behind her, Bella spoke in clipped, business-like tones. "Such processions fostered _polis_ identity, facilitating a sense of shared identity, or what Victor Turner called _communitas_.

But then, Bella plunged on in a hurried cadence, her voice rising in timber. "Imagine yourself there. Imagine the exertion. Imagine the lack of oxygen, the adrenaline rush. Together with low blood glucose levels, the exertion of the ritual would naturally contribute to altered psychological states that would only enhance physical arousal."

Brow furrowed, Edward wondered what on earth Bella could possibly be talking about.

"This in turn," Bella explained, her voice returning to its previous, placid pace, "would boost the emotional impact of ritual activity and thus reinforce _polis_ identity on a subconscious level."

Edward glanced quickly around, taking in the rapt expressions on the rest of the audience. (And it didn't escape his notice that a large proportion of the audience was male.)

"But how does this get us any closer to understanding the Athenian psyche when it comes to women?" Bella asked. "Confined in the home, denied what we've come to accept as basic human rights, rarely literate, bound by group mores, elite Athenian women were quintessentially tied to the civic center, polar opposites of that female creature from men's nightmares, the _Bacchae_ , devotees of Dionysius, Greek god of wine and the theater."

A new image flashed up on the screen, the new one showing a stylized portrait of two women holding up the torso of a man who had apparently been torn in half.

"These _Bacchae_ were the quintessential women, typifying the irrationality attached to the gender. Yet, they also rejected their femininity in the roles of wife and mother. Driven mad by Dionysius, they fled the city and supposedly tore apart their own children. Nevertheless, these _Bacchae_ had a role in defining polis identity, at least in the imagination. According to Euripides' play, the _Bacchae_ were guilty of harassing the countryside around Thebes. Their movements marked the edges of Theban city-space. Where the _Bacchae_ went, Theban power no longer applied. Likewise, another set of women, the daughters of Proitus were supposedly driven mad by Hera, goddess of marriage. They fled from Argive-dominated Tiryns, to the city of Argos, which celebrated the Agrania in their honor. The daughters of Proitus ran all of the way to Argive-founded Sicyon, where they were cured."

A map flashed up on the screen.

"The _Bacchae_ clarified the boundaries of Theban territory by identifying the edges of _polis_ space. The flight of the Proitids, however helped the Argives lay _psychic_ claims upon territory outside of Argos. Where the Argive women go, so Argos' borders, all of the way to Sicyon.

"Yet the Proitids, along with the Theban _Bacchae_ , were also violating the boundaries of domestic space, weren't they? Their escape into the countryside suggested their resistance to the mechanisms meant to ensure spatial control in the male-dominated _polis_ life. According to Hesiod, the Proitids had a plethora of suitors until they made the mistake of mocking the goddess of marriage. According to Bacchylides, the Proitids are 'yoked' to their madness and travel though the countryside like untamed beasts. It is no accident that the Greek term for 'yoking an animal'— _damazo_ —is also the term for 'marriage,' for 'conquest,' and for 'rape.'"

A statue of a dancing girl appeared on the screen.

"We might assume that Artemis, the huntress of wild animals and a virgin herself, would have been somewhat sympathetic with the plight of these wild women who were so desperate to escape the bonds of city life and marriage. But according to Pausanias, the Proitids were cured at the Sanctuary of Artemis at Lousoi; afterwards, the inhabitants referred to the goddess as Artemis the _Tamer_. And in one version of the myth, the two surviving Proitids actually marry Melampous, the man responsible for overseeing the cure, and his brother. It hardly seems an accident that Melampous is also credited with having introduced worship of Dionysos into parts of Greece."

As Edward listened to Bella lecture, he realized that, for the first time, he was seeing her completely at ease. For once, she didn't seem anxious or worried about what other people thought. She was weaving a story, and she was utterly in control of every single strand.

"Compare this to the paradigmatic myth for the Spartan marriage ritual: The flight of Hilaeira and Phoebe and then their capture by and marriage to the heroes Castor and Pollux. Spartan marriage ceremonies reenacted the myth, with a ritual flight of the bride and capture by the husband. Some writers attributed the first Messenian War to the theft of virgins who were dancing at a sanctuary on the border of Sparta. Not for nothing did Melampous and his male companions supposedly chase the Proitids with wild dancing."

Edward could hear the smile in Bella's voice as the next words came out of her mouth: "Because it's true," she said, "women do love a guy who can dance."

The audience chuckled.

And Edward felt a flush of warmth. _This_ was not a Bella he'd ever seen before. _A Bella who enjoyed dancing?_

Was it just an act? Was Bella performing now? Just trying to entertain her audience?

Or was this the real Bella? Was the one who seemed to resent Edward's request to dance the fake?

Edward was struck by the sudden suspicion that Bella knew how to dance. That she was a superb dancer. And that she'd been feigning her lack of experience.

Bella continued: "One story actually claims that the same Theseus who seized the Amazonian Antiope also kidnapped Helen while she was dancing at a sanctuary of Artemis Orthia on the edge of Sparta. And as you know, the _Iliad_ served as the archetype for war instigated by the theft of women. Helen of Troy provided the model."

The image of the dancing maiden changed to one of two soldiers carrying off a third figure, this one clad in armor, but with soft, feminine features. A woman warrior.

"According to Lefebvre, power is contingent upon the space over which it is exercised, particularly with violence. Hence it is no accident that war was so often incited, at least in the Greek imagination, by transgressions against the sexually vulnerable maidens who were meant to be safeguarded at the city center. Women served as agents of negotiation with the Other. They marked the space over which _polis_ exerted authority. The flight, chase and seizure of women created borders, at least in the imagination."

Bella's voice hardened. "Therefore, I have to take issue with scholars who have argued that women made no meaningful contribution to the _polis_. Aristophanes said that women deserved a vote in return for their avid participation in Athenian religious rituals. Now this may have been a joke on Aristophanes' part, he was a comedian, but how many of the men laughing at that joke were shifting uncomfortably in their seats, because they knew it was true? Because it was the women who held the _polis_ together?

"But let us not forget that resistance to the narrow confines prescribed for women in _polis_ life was considered an aberration, for which the cure was marriage. To modern feminist eyes, this seems counter-intuitive. To us, it seems only natural that a woman would seek out autonomy. To us, the so-called disease of the Proitids, the search for independence, was healthy, and the so-called cure was submission to the real illness, subjugation.

"And yet there is evidence that some sort of curative work was in fact going on. Recent studies in the fields of psychology and anthropology suggest that the shamanic and ritual activities implied by so many of these myths are both curative and transformative. The physical exertion of the ritual would have stimulated physiological triggers that produced psychological effects conducive to transformation. And by actively participating, women became the vehicles of their own change. Yes, women were being socialized into embracing limited roles as wife and mother, but we have to ask how they found meaning in their own lives. If we see them as merely victims, we are re-inscribing them with the very subjugation that we claim to abhor. I like to think that the Proitid who married Melampous sometimes reminded him that she knew how to run."

And with that, Bella's lecture came to an end.

The lights flickered on, and in the brief question-and-answer period that followed, Bella was no less in command of her material. She answered every question succinctly. Most of the questions were about the sources, though there were a few shrill challenges to her conclusions. She offered to go into greater detail about a few questions one-on-one later on, saying that she didn't want to run over her allotted time.

This wasn't the same Bella who had delivered the lecture. This Bella rattled her papers and made a face when she realized that she was rambling.

It wasn't as if Bella had suddenly lost her bearings, though Edward could see why someone watching her might make that mistake. Rather, Bella was simply shedding the persona of the domineering scholar.

The Bella who took questions was much more approachable.

This was why she was so popular with her students, Edward realized. She knew her shit. But she was consummately _kind._ Knowledge, to her, wasn't a weapon.

But clearly that wasn't the only reason for her popularity.

As the next person on the schedule for the symposium went up to the podium, a good number of the audience—again, most of them male—filed out of the auditorium.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

When Edward's name flashed across Bella's phone a few hours after her lecture, Bella was hesitant to answer. She was exhausted after her long day, and she was afraid that he was going to mention the pictures.

But she didn't want to be a coward. So she answered.

"I saw your lecture today," he said, sounding slightly out of breath, as if he'd rushed to answer the phone, but that didn't make sense, since he'd called her.

Bella was dumbstruck for a minute. "You—why would you do that?"

"I was walking across the campus yesterday and I saw a flier." His voice was gravelly.

"Oh." Bella didn't know what to say.

"It was good."

"Do you think so?" Bella was still sick with anxiety from the lecture. She felt like the other presenters had done a much better job than she.

"The audience was eating it right up. Especially the men." Edward's voice was dripping with innuendo.

Bella was certain that he was making fun of her now. "I'm going to hang up if you're going to be this way."

"Be what way?" he panted.

"If you're going to be a jerk," Bella said.

And did he just grunt?

Bella froze. "What are you doing?"

"Thinking about you lecturing today, in an auditorium full of young men who wanted nothing better than to bend you over that podium."

Bella's hand was shaking. _Was this really happening?_

"Don't hang up," he begged.

Because he was long past denying it to himself. And watching her today had pushed him over the edge.

Bella didn't reply. She was so taken aback that she didn't have a chance to be offended by what he was obviously doing on the other end.

"Do you realize the effect you have on people?" he asked, and then very definitely grunted. "You were the smartest person there and they all knew it. You had them mesmerized. You were mesmerizing." He groaned.

Bella wasn't _offended_ by what he was doing—it wasn't for her to judge—but this was wrong. He was sharing such an intimate part of himself. She felt like she was invading his privacy.

She was going to hang up. She had to hang up. She couldn't listen to…this.

"Does a single one of them even have a chance with you?" he asked.

She couldn't believe that he would suggest something like—

"Does it turn you on to be on display like that? Exposed to all of them, knowing that they want you?"

Bella opened her mouth to deny it, but no sound came out.

"You looked…exhilarated," Edward said, breathing more heavily. "Say something."

"What do you want me to say?" Bella asked, because she didn't know what else to say. She ought to be hanging up. But she wasn't. The notion that Edward would be so worked up, and on the phone with _her_ , was—

Shocking.

Amazing.

He groaned. "Anything. What _didn't_ you say? What would you have said if you'd had more time?"

Was he serious? "You want me to lecture?"

"Please."

Swallowing, Bella started, feeling awkward. "The daughters of Leucippus ran away, too."

Edward was still panting.

"They married their pursuers," she said. "The priestesses of Leucippus would organize races between young women."

Bella could feel her own heart beginning to race, as she listened to the sounds Edward was making.

Sure that he could hear the way that her voice was shaking, she tried to force herself to calm down. "Atalanta was a huntress and a virgin. She agreed to marry, but would only take a man who could outrun her. And anyone who lost a race against her would be killed. So many men died. But then Hippomenes cheated. Every time Atalanta passed him, Hippomenes threw a magically enchanted apple in front of her and she went chasing after it. He won."

Her breath catching, her skin heating at the thought of what Edward was doing, Bella made a confession. "I wonder sometimes if Atalanta _wanted_ to lose. If she was tired of running. If she just wanted someone to try hard enough. I bet she wasn't in the least bit interested in the apples. I think she wanted Hippomenes. She wanted him to want her. So she pretended to lose. And it was alright, because he let her save face, by chasing after the apples, pretending they were magical. Like Adam and Eve, only they got the story right."

Bella broke off.

Edward's breathing was still ragged, but it had slowed.

She wondered if she should keep talking, but she held her tongue. Listening to him try to catch his breath, she willed herself to calm down too.

When Edward spoke, his voice was still strained. "You almost seemed turned on, lecturing today in that auditorium. I can only imagine what you would have done to them, if you actually had been turned on."

Bella swallowed.

"And I see now why your students love you," Edward continued. "You seduce them."

"I don't do anything," Bella said, her voice betraying her with its roughness.

"I don't mean that you're doing anything inappropriate. But you fuck with them. You glance back at them coyly over your shoulder every once in a while to see if they've kept up, and when they've fallen behind, the look in your eye is enough to make them want to catch up. They want to be men in your eyes. You laugh at them."

"I don't laugh at them."

"They each want to be the one who catches you."

"No. I'm not like that." Bella didn't like the portrait that Edward was painting of her. She didn't like the way it made her look—like she was using men.

"Why do you pretend to be something you're not?" Edward asked.

"What do you mean?"

"That creature at the front of the auditorium, all eyes riveted on her, the center of attention, that's who you are."

"What?" Bella shook her head. "No—I don't like people looking at me."

Edward chuckled, his voice still gravelly. "Is that why you keep sending me those pictures?"

"You told me I had to."

"You could have said no. Or you could have just sent simple snapshots. But you didn't, did you? You sent pictures of you touching yourself. You're intentionally trying to provoke me. Do you want to provoke me?"

Bella felt herself growing annoyed. She didn't want to have to think about what Edward thought of the pictures. The photos were for her. She'd taken shots that turned _her_ on. And yes, she had sent them on to Edward, but only as a sort of _fuck you_. They weren't _for_ him.

"After your lecture," Edward continued, "you changed. When you were answering questions. So awkward and bumbling. Like Superman turning back into Clark Kent. Do any of your students actually fall for it?"

"It's not an act. _That_ 's who I am."

Edward snorted softly.

"It _is_ ," Bella insisted.

"Do you know what I saw?" Edward asked.

"Me."

"While you were lecturing, I saw a woman _on fire_. I saw a woman who _commands a room_. And every man in that auditorium, and the women, too, were _watching_ you. Listening to every word you said. And the people who challenged you at the end—"

Bella remembered—that bitch, Dr _. Volturri_ —Dr. Volturri had rattled off some nonsense from Kristeva, accusing Bella of overlooking the I/Not I dichotomy and purification of the abject, like that had anything to do with anything.

"—you _annihilated_ them," Edward concluded.

Bella thought that was an exaggeration. She didn't even really understand Kristeva, so how could she have annihilated Dr. Volturri's argument?

But Edward didn't seem to harbor any doubts. "You _dominated_. Even when you were pretending to be this meek and mild thing—and it's a mistake. You're making a mistake by pretending to be something you're not. That's why that bitch thought that she could walk all over you at the end."

Bella knew that he was right, at least when it came to Dr. Volturri.

Dr. Volturri respected strength.

But Bella didn't think that she should change herself just for one person.

"You had to be yourself again," Edward pressed on, "for just a second when you were answering her. You were so fucking angry at her. And it was so clear."

 _Fuck_. Was Bella really that obvious?

"You'd put on your Clark Kent suit, and this bitch just came barreling at you, and you went Superman on her. But I know why you do it, why you put on the Clark Kent show. You don't want to frighten the students. You want them to think that you're approachable. Do you really think they're falling for it?"

 _What?_ "I'm a good teacher," Bella insisted. She _wanted_ to be a good teacher.

Edward chuckled again. "But they _like_ the other Bella. The one who dominates. They are _enthralled_ by her. You can be the sweet, shy Clark Kent so that they're not afraid to talk to you, but all along, they'll be secretly hoping the other one comes out. The one who'd tie them to a bed and make them like it."

"I would never—"

"Why not? You think that they wouldn't like it? Being captured by you, like— What did you call it? _Damas_?"

" _Damazo_ ," Bella said.

" _Damazo_. Conquered. Married. Is that what you imagine relationships are really like? Is that why you're afraid of being with someone?"

Bella didn't like where this conversation was going. "It's not ancient Greece anymore."

"Maybe you secretly wish it was. Maybe you don't want to admit what you want. It would be easier to put the blame on someone else. To let yourself be taken."

"No." _Of course not._

Bella wasn't like that, was she? After what happened—after what _almost_ happened—she'd never play a game like that. Not after—

The two words left Bella's mouth before she could stop herself. "Port Angeles."

And Edward's heart dropped into his stomach.

 **AN:**

 **No, Edward is not advocating rape. No, Bella is not advocating brainwashing. No this story is not suggesting that women should pretend to be victims so that they can get guys. This story is, however, exploring the problematic discourse surrounding these topics.**

 **Yes, if a guy is fucking with you, you should punch him in the throat. And then the junk. Or possibly in the other order.**

 **You should not marry him.**

 **And if you are already married to him, you should leave him.**

 **Sources for the lecture include:**

Bremmer, J.N. "Greek Maenadism Reconsidered." _Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie und Epigraphik_.

de Polignac, François. _Cults, Territory, and the Origins of the Greek City-State._ Trans. Janet Lloyd. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995.

Cole, Susan. _Landscapes, Gender, and Ritual Space: The Ancient Greek Experience._ Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

Bonnie Glass-Coffin, "Radical Empathy, Gender, and Shamanic Healing: Examples from Peru," _Spiritual Transformation and Healing: Anthropological, Theological, Neuroscientific, and Clinical Perspectives,_ eds. Joan Koss-Chioino and Philip Hefner (New York: Altamira Press, 2006), 63-64.

Hogue, David. "Healing of the Self-in-Context: Memory, Plasticity, and Spiritual Practice." _Spiritual Transformation and Healing: Anthropological, Theological, Neuroscientific, and Clinical Perspectives._ Eds. Joan Koss-Chioino and Philip Hefner. New York: Altamira Press, 2006: 223-240.

Larson, Jennifer. _Greek Nymphs: Myth, Cult, Lore._ New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Larson, Jennifer. _Greek Heroine Cults_. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1995.

McCauley, Robert. "Ritual, Memory, and Emotion: Comparing Two Cognitive Hypotheses." _Religion in Mind: Cognitive Perspectives on Religious Belief, Ritual, and Experience._ Ed. Jensine Andresen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001: 115-140.

Pomeroy, Sarah B. _Spartan Women_. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Robertson, Noel. "Greek Ritual Begging in Aid of Women's Fertility and Childbirth." _Transactions of the American Philological Association (1974-)._ Vol. 113. (1983), 143-169.

Robertson, Noel. _Festivals and Legends: The Formation of Greek Cities in the Light of Public Ritual._ Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993.

Seaford, Richard. **"** The Eleventh Ode of Bacchylides: Hera, Artemis, and the Absence of Dionysos." _The Journal of Hellenic Studies_. Vol. 108, (1988): 118-136.

Turner, Victor. "Dramatic Ritual/Ritual Drama: Performative and Reflexive Anthropology." _A Crack in the Mirror: Reflexive Perspectives in Anthropology._ Ed. Jay Ruby. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982: 83-91.

Pausanius 4.16.9, 4.4, 8.18.7

Herodotus 1.4, 2.49, 9.34

For the images, 1 Google ithyphallic satyr

2 Google Pentheus vase

3 Google Running Spartan woman

4 Theseus kidnaps Antiope red-figure amphora

Rec: Diamond in the rough _Hearts in Pain_ by Tess84 - AH. Bella Swan moves to the tiny town of Forks where she meets Edward Cullen, and the two fall in love. Their relationship is cut short when Edward moves from town - but he is leaving behind more than he could ever imagine... Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Drama - Bella, Edward - Chapters: 31 - Words: 162,899 - Reviews: 547 - Favs: 1,042 - Follows: 386 - Updated: Dec 25, 2009 - Published: Aug 20, 2009 - Status: Complete - id: 5317144


	13. Chapter 13

**Warning: This chapter contains a reference to suicide.** **If you live in the USA and need help, text "Go" to 741741 or call 1-800-273-8255. Other support services available at www dot crisistextline dot org**

 **The extended philosophical debate on sex and pleasure that begins in this chapter will only last until chapter 16, promise.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

 _Socrates: "Then he, and every other who desires, desires what is not in his possession and not there, what he has not, and what he is not himself and what he lacks? Those are the sorts of things of which there is desire and love?"_

 _Agathon: 'Certainly."_

 _Socrates: "The gods arranged their business through love of beautiful things, for there could not be a love for ugly things. Didn't you say something like that?"_

 _Agathon: "Yes, I did."_

 _Socrates: "Well now, it has been agreed that he loves what he lacks and has not?"_

 _Agathon: "Yes."_

 _Socrates: "Then Love lacks and has not beauty."_

 _Agathon: "I fear Socrates, I knew nothing of what I said!"_

 _Socrates: "Do not try to compel what is not beautiful to be ugly, or what is not good to be bad. So also with Love. He is not good and not beautiful, as you admit yourself, but do not imagine for that reason any the more that he must be ugly and bad."_

Plato's _Symposium_ [abridged] translated by W. H. D. Rouse

Chapter 13

"Seriously, if it gets any worse, I'm gonna throw myself off the roof," Cheney joked.

Edward snorted, because he knew that Cheney was just joking. Edward knew that Cheney had no intention of actually taking a swan dive. Everyone was upset about the new regulations for overtime. Cheney was just blowing off steam.

Gazing out the window of the break room, Edward drank his coffee and listened as Cheney started in about a problem-patient who had come in for surgery that morning.

"Hey man, you okay?" Cheney asked.

Edward glanced at the other doctor. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know. You're usually the first one to call out this shit admin's pulling. And you're just putting up with it. It's out of character."

Not sure what to say, Edward just shrugged. He and Cheney weren't friends. Not really. Edward didn't have friends. He went to work and he went home. He used to stop at Breaking Dawn, but that was behind him now.

Edward knew that a healthy recovery depended on him establishing genuine relationships with people, relationships that had nothing to do with sex, but Edward was still trying to decide if it was really worth it. Growing up, it just got to be too awkward, having to explain his mother to other people. He could never bring anyone home. And by the time he moved to Forks, he just wasn't interested. He was better on his own. Oh, he would hang out now and then. He had learned to put on a show of friendship, so that his father and stepmother wouldn't start freaking out. But he didn't really consider any of them his friends. And he was the same way all of the way through college. He hung out every once in a while, just to blow off steam. And he had "study dates." But he was always a loner.

"What's her name?" Cheney wanted to know.

Edward shook his head.

" _His_ name?" Cheney asked, raising an eyebrow.

"There's no one." Edward resented the implication, first, that he was somehow different, and second, that any observed change might have been the result of some outside influence, like Edward couldn't do it by himself.

Edward wasn't malleable. He wasn't fickle.

And if he _had_ changed, it was thanks to his own efforts. _He_ was the one who had decided to stop going to Breaking Dawn. That was all on Edward. No one else was getting the credit.

So yeah, maybe Edward wasn't sitting in the break room staring morosely out the window. (Instead, he was on his phone looking at Bella's texts or thinking about texting Bella.) But Edward wasn't exactly going around singing show tunes.

As if to confirm that point, Cheney sobered up. "I don't mean that you're the life of the party. You're still the king of gallows humor. But I used to be worried that you really would throw yourself off of the roof."

Edward felt a pang of panic. Had he really that transparent? He'd been convinced that no one knew how bad it had gotten.

Not that it _had_ gotten that bad, Edward reminded himself. He had never really intended to do anything.

But he didn't like the way that Cheney was looking at him. Cocking his head, Edward asked, "The king of gallows humor? Is that what I am? What're you then?"

"I, my good sir, am the life-of-the-party of the department."

Edward couldn't help snorting again.

Cheney had to get back to work, so Edward pulled out his phone (again), checking to see if Bella had texted.

 _Nothing._

Which was good news, because it meant that she hadn't backed out of their "coffee-date" that evening.

Aside from extending an invitation for coffee, Edward been leaving Bella alone since that disastrous phone call the night of her lecture.

 _Why, oh why, had he thought that would be a good idea?_

He hadn't _thought_ , that was the problem. It had been so long since he'd had phone sex and—

And _what_?

Sex addicts weren't supposed to be having phone sex.

As it was, Edward masturbated far more frequently than he was supposed to. Or rather, far more frequently than his research suggested was entirely healthy for a recovering addict.

Edward consoled himself that excessive masturbation was better than random hook-ups, but he knew that he had to cut back. And the photos on his phone weren't helping, those images of Bella popping into his head far more often than he would have liked.

As much as Edward tried to deny it, calling Bella like that didn't bode well for his recovery.

Worse still, the way that she'd ended the call was an all too harsh reminder that he wasn't the only one with something at stake in this little game of theirs.

 _Port Angeles._

Part of Edward wished he'd just stayed the hell away from Port Angeles on the night in question.

But if he _had_ stayed home, who the hell knew what would have happened to Bella?

The reference to Port Angeles, together with Edward's realization as to the strain his recent behavior was placing on his recovery efforts, made him put a halt to the daily texts. He wasn't sending Bella pornographic messages, nor was he requesting photos. But he also couldn't help thinking that it would be nice, for once, if Bella would text him of her own accord, unprompted by any effort on his part. He was still sending her flowers, after all. And she seemed to have been enjoying their game, at least a little. Couldn't she send him just one measly text?

Checking his phone one last time, and equal parts relieved and depressed to find no message from Bella, Edward headed to the nurses' station.

"Edward? Edward Cullen?"

Hearing his name, Edward turned and was surprised to see a rather burly-looking man approaching him. The guy seemed oddly familiar.

"It's me," the man introduced himself, holding out a hand. "Tyler."

 _Tyler?_

 _Tyler._ From Forks.

They'd been friends. Or, as close to friends as Edward got.

"Tyler," Edward greeted awkwardly, shaking his hand. "How are you doing?"

"Heard you were working here, as a doctor, and so I came up to see you," Tyler explained.

They'd last seen each other at the grocery store in Forks, when Edward came home for Thanksgiving, his junior year of college. They'd exchanged nods over the pumpkin pies.

That was years ago. Edward had no idea why Tyler would be seeking him out now.

"I know it's weird for me to be coming at you like this, but I'm sick," Tyler said, handing Edward a file.

 _Fuck_. Edward shook his head, but he took the proffered file and motioned Tyler into an empty room, not because Edward thought that he could do Tyler any good—he had no idea what was wrong with the man—but because he figured it was the path of least resistance. Edward was used to people asking him for medical advice. The guy at the bagel shop would always complain about a pain in his back, and ask for a prescription, which Edward couldn't help but refuse. And some of the regulars at Breaking Dawn had asked Edward for referrals, which was just about as awkward as it sounded. It surprised Edward that Tyler would go this far out of the way to get a doctor's opinion, but it wasn't all that strange.

"What's your diagnosis?" Edward asked, opening the file and starting to scan it.

"I've got HIV."

 _Well shit._ "I'm sorry, but that's not my specialty. I can recommend someone."

"I just want someone I trust to take a look at my chart," Tyler said.

Edward sighed, because Tyler really was better off with a specialist, and it wasn't like they had even spoken in years. "You have Hep C," Edward pointed out.

"Yeah, you really dodged the bullet on that one," Tyler said.

Edward looked up at him. "What do you mean?"

"Because you didn't have sex with Swan's mother. We all got it. Pretty sure it was from her."

Edward blinked. "What?"

"I know, we should've known better. But I was only seventeen. And hell, it was the Chief's ex. Who wouldn't bang that?"

Edward shook his head to try and clear it. That night was still a haze. He remembered drinking with his friends and stumbling alongside the road. He remembered the sign for the motel flashing in the trees. He remembered seeing Bella's mom in the doorway of one of the rooms, and the other guys pushing him inside.

But that was it.

The next day, he'd woken up on Tyler's sofa. _Can you believe the night we had?_ Tyler had asked Edward, handing him a beer. What's-his-name (Marcus?) had laughed, sitting on the floor, playing a video game. _Can't believe we all fucked Swan's mom._

And that was that.

Edward never bothered to question it. _Why should he?_ When the rumors started going around, Edward's name always popped up on the list. He remembered Renee, and everyone said that he'd joined in.

So why the fuck should he question it?

"Are you telling me that I didn't have sex with her?" Edward asked, wanting clarification.

 _Because Jesus fucking Christ—_

Tyler scoffed. "Dude, you passed out on the floor. We had to carry you out."

"But you said—" Edward didn't understand. "You said that I had sex with her."

Tyler looked remorseful. "We didn't want you to feel left out."

 _They didn't want him to feel left out?_

 _Left. Out._

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Edward couldn't believe what he was hearing. Everything that he thought that he knew was wrong.

He had believed them. He had just accepted the story.

Because it made sense. It right fit in with everything his birth mother had always said about him.

Edward's father was always telling him that he was so proud of him, pretending that he actually gave a damn, but Edward had always sensed that it was bullshit. He knew damn well that he was a jerk. He made his stepmother and Alice cry. He resented Emmett.

Because he didn't fit. He didn't belong in Forks, in his father's perfect new little family. Edward belonged in a juvenile detention center, just another inner city punk.

 _It was only self-defense_ , the authorities had assured him. Edward didn't go to jail because he was only defending himself from his mother.

But Edward knew better. He knew that he deserved to pay for what he'd done to her.

Just like he deserved the bruises every damn time that bitch raised her hand to him.

The realization that this was in itself a contradiction—that it made no sense to loathe the woman who had punished ( _abused_ ) Edward for years while at the same time feeling that he deserved the punishment ( _abuse_ )—did nothing to eradicate the self-loathing and guilt.

And the passage of time had done nothing, _nothing_ , to ameliorate Edward's condition.

The discovery that he'd had sex with Bella's mother—not just the Chief's ex, either, for Renee was a _certain kind of woman_ , old enough to be Edward's own mother, and yet, somehow, appearing even older, Renee's tawdry attire and lurid makeup and provocative speech no mask for the ruinous effect of a hard life, _sex that by its very nature was illicit_ , and made all the cheaper by the rumored exchange of currency and the fact that Edward and his so-called friends had taken turns—it was all the confirmation that Edward had needed to believe that he was a monster. That he was everything his birth mother had always said that he was.

After that, there was no point in really trying. Or so Edward had decided. Having realizing that he was, in fact, the sick perv his mother had always called him, Edward had decided that there was no point in pretending to have standards. Why not just fuck whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted?

It wasn't quite as bad as that, of course. It wasn't like Edward was instantly an addict. But _Jesus fucking Christ._

And all because—

"Look man," Tyler said, "I'm sorry. We were just kids. What the fuck did we know? I mean, Swan's mother was the one at fault, right? We were fucking teenagers."

Tyler had a point, didn't he? They _were_ just teenagers. Bella's mother was the adult.

But then Edward remembered Port Angeles, and a bubble of fury erupted in his chest. "And Bella?"

Tyler's face wrinkled. "Bella? Who?" Tyler's expression cleared. "Oh, you mean _the Beast_."

Edward had forgotten that old nickname.

"What about her?" Tyler asked.

"You know what happened to her after her mother was run out of town."

Tyler shook his head. "That was all on the Beast. She was such a bitch. Always acting like she was so high and mighty. Don't you remember how she told the whole school that your mother was a crack-addict?"

And it was true. Edward and Bella had been arguing about something in the cafeteria—Edward couldn't even remember what they were arguing about—and Bella had laughed in his face. "Well at least my mother's not a crack-head," she said, loud enough for the entire cafeteria to hear, with a damn smile on her face because she knew damn well what she'd just done.

But Bella didn't deserve what had happened to her at Port Angeles. She didn't deserve to have the entire town turn on her.

Squeezing his eyes closed, Edward tried to rein in his emotions. He didn't know what to do with the information that he'd just been given and he couldn't handle the turmoil he was feeling—not now. Not at work.

He had to get rid of Tyler.

Edward opened his eyes and studied Tyler's chart for another minute. "Your blood-work looks good. You're still in the early stages. And this treatment looks okay. If you want some names of specialists, I can give them to you."

"That would be great man, thanks."

Edward nodded.

"And I'm sorry," Tyler continued. "About the way we lied to you. And I guess about what happened to the Beast—to _Bella_ —it was kind of fucked up. But you know, Forks is like that. Small town and all."

Edward snorted. "Yeah,small _town._ "

Small _people_ , was more like it _._

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Bella didn't know what to think about Edward. Their conversation the night after Bella's lecture had been so very strange. Leaving aside Bella's suspicions about just what Edward had actually been doing while he on the other end of the line, there was her anxiety over the way that the conversation had ended. As soon as she'd mentioned Port Angeles, Edward had shut down. He told her that he had to get some sleep, then hung up.

Lying in bed that night, Bella couldn't help tossing and turning. She found herself picturing Edward—wondering what he had really been doing during the call.

And though part of her thought that it was wrong, warned her that she wouldn't be able to face Edward again if she followed her inclinations, Bella let her mind drift, until it was Edward's face, his hands, and everything that must lie under his clothing that she was picturing as one hand had cupped her breast and the other had slid between her thighs.

Why shouldn't she enjoy herself? Hadn't he enjoyed himself with her, calling her like that, clearly in a state of arousal? Making her listen? And he had been thinking of her—or so he had said.

Besides, if Bella was really going to go through with Tanya's plan, then eventually it wouldbe Edward's hands in place of her own running over her body.

For a moment, this realization gave Bella reason to pause, her hands poised over her flesh.

She didn't fool herself that Edward would be a kind lover. Tanya had assured Bella that Edward's interest was limited solely to the extent that obtaining Bella posed a challenge. Edward wanted Bella, _if_ he wanted Bella, only because he couldn't have her. Tanya's plan would work only because Edward would be under the impression that he was taking something from her. A seizure.

So Edward would be rough, not gentle. Cruel, not kind.

Bella remembered the way that he'd walked away that night in Port Angeles. (Never mind that Bella had told him to leave her there—he could see damn well what was going to happen to her. And he'd _gone_.) He was utterly indifferent to Bella, to what she might need.

And yet, somehow, Bella had begun to forget just how much she hated Edward. She'd begun to forget the way he'd turned away from her that night so long ago. The way that he'd mocked her all the years leading up to that night. The way that he went after her mother.

And yet Bella had somehow come to _enjoy_ her time with Edward. Something inside of her had _enjoyed_ his phone call. Had _enjoyed_ knowing that he'd liked her lecture. Had _enjoyed_ their verbal sparring, a sparring that was so very like and, at the same time, nothing like the vicious way that they'd gone after each other when they were teenagers.

How could Bella betray herself like this?

Everything Bella was doing depended on her hating Edward. After all, she would have to despise a person to do something like this to him, to use someone like this.

And remembering how much she hated Edward was all it took to calm Bella's sudden nerves as she returned to her ministrations. Her hands became almost violent as she touched herself, squeezing a breast and pinching a nipple, shoving her fingers into herself crudely so that she cried out with the invasion.

If she was going to proceed with the plan, then would need an Edward who wouldn't take his time. She didn't want gentle. She wanted fast and hard.

And Bella came fast and hard that night, recalling Edward's hoarse breathing on the call.

The next day, she took a picture of herself with her fingers buried in the long yarn fringe trailing from one end of an old blanket that her grandmother had crocheted, a feather boa wrapped around her arm. It was in homage to the daughters of Minyas, who had shunned the festival of Dionysius in order to continue their weaving. As punishment for their impiety, they were turned into birds.

All day, Bella waited for Edward to request his picture, but no request came.

In the days that followed, she received not one more request for a picture. The flowers kept coming, but Edward wasn't asking her to send any more pictures to him. Had he lost interest?

Bella's anxiety rose as more and more days passed. She couldn't decide what made her more anxious, the danger that their little game was over, or that it wasn't.

When Edward texted an invitation to coffee, Bella feared that he meant to use the meeting to call the whole contest off.

At the same time, she feared that he wasn't going to call it off.

And she was oh so wary of facing him now that he was starring in her fantasies.

A series of increasingly insistent voicemails from Bella's fairy godmother didn't help matters. The sound of Tanya's shrill voice, posing question after question, and making suggestions, riled Bella's nerves. Bella didn't want to talk to Tanya, but realizing that silence on her part was counterproductive, Bella had felt compelled to send a text informing Tanya about the flower deliveries. Bella didn't tell Tanya about the lingerie or the pictures, or the pornographic texts for that matter. It didn't make sense that Bella would hide these things—Tanya was the one who'd put her up to all of this in the first place—but, for some reason, Bella wanted to keep as many of the details as possible to herself. So Bella said nothing about the texts or the phone call or the dinner. In fact, Bella had been half-afraid that Tanya would barge into the middle of the meal.

"I only want to help things along," Tanya had explained. "I know him better than you."

Bella wondered about that. Did Tanya really know Edward as well as she claimed? After all, Tanya had lost him, hadn't she? And Bella was the one he was... _calling_ now, not Tanya. Bella had known Edward since they were teenagers and Bella found herself ignoring most of Tanya's advice when it came to Edward. Yes, Tanya had advised Bella to play hard-to-get, and Bella was doing just that, but certainly not in the way that Tanya had intended, with flirtatious innuendoes and come-hither glances. (What an exotic little afternoon that had been, Tanya demonstrating for Bella just what she meant by a sultry glance over the shoulder, a lingering touch inviting more touches. A seduction. And all of it well beyond Bella's means. She couldn't do that, at least not with Edward. But Bella had played along, practicing with Tanya, an "accidental" brush of a finger along Tanya's hand and a whispered confidence in Tanya's ear leading to the two of them face-to-face, breaths mingling, a hairsbreadth apart. For a brief moment, Bella thought that Tanya was going to kiss her, and Bella wondered that would be like, to kiss a woman. It was merely an intellectual interest on Bella's part, for she felt nothing, and Tanya must have sensed as much, because Bella saw a flash of anger in Tanya's eyes. "Not like that," Tanya snapped, and Bella knew that she'd somehow messed up.)

Suffice it to say that Bella's notion of playing hard-to-get didn't quite match up with Tanya's.

So if Edward thought that Bella was being coy, it was because Bella hadn't quite decided to go through with her plan. She certainly wasn't lying to him, except about the one thing that mattered the most, the reason that she had reinserted herself back into the Cullens' lives. It wasn't Bella's fault that her efforts to extricate herself from the situation hadn't worked (or she told herself).

She could have spoken up, of course. Bella could have told Edward that it was all a ruse, that she was using him, but—

But she didn't want to.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

When Edward entered the coffee shop, the line was nearly out the door. So Edward joined the queue, hoping that Bella would arrive by the time he reached the counter.

He wondered why Bella had insisted that they come all of the way here to meet. The coffee shop wasn't anywhere near the university or Bella's apartment. It was very _coffeehouse-ish_ , aside for the beers on the menu. The place clearly doubled as a bar at night.

Neo-folk played over the speakers and almost all of the other patrons were wearing those Buddy Holly glasses that were so very stylish these days, their clothes were a mix of the neatly tailored grunge and artsy frumpery that Edward's stepsister liked.

Trying to picture Bella in such a setting—he'd never pictured her as a hipster—Edward noticed a little alcove in the corner. A massive door open on its hinges at the entrance of the alcove, the door looking as if it was just for show, being done up to resemble the entrance to a bank vault, about a foot thick and coated in silver paint. It made Edward think of gears and pistons and steam engines.

Bella still hadn't arrived. But Edward was early and there was no reason to think that she wouldn't show. She'd picked the place after all.

Edward was happy that she'd taken the initiative in naming a place. He was still worried that he'd gone too far, calling her after the lecture—the _way_ that he called her—he was afraid that it would be too much for her, too soon. And he was still struggling to come to terms with everything he'd learned that day about his relationship with Bella's mother.

Part of him wanted to blurt the truth to Bella.

And part of him wanted to proceed as if nothing had changed.

Edward was divided between the desire to absolve himself of any wrongdoing, and resentment over the fact that anyone might think that he had something to absolve himself for.

Oddly enough, this mirrored Edward's own attitude towards his addiction. As much as he knew that he had to change—as much as he knew that his condition had gotten out of control—he still resented the stigma associated with it. People were only beginning to treat alcohol and gambling addiction as diseases deserving of some compassion. Sex addicts lagged far behind when it came to garnering any sympathy.

It didn't help that Edward wasn't exactly sure that addicts of any sort really deserved anyone's sympathy. Addicts were responsible for getting themselves addicted, weren't they?

On the one hand, Edward was ashamed of his condition.

On the other hand, Edward resented how sex addicts were targets of ridicule.

And even though Edward knew that he had to take responsibility for how thoroughly he'd fucked up his life, he felt wronged.

Edward also knew very well that this game he was playing with Bella was dangerous in terms of his recovery. He kept telling himself that he was using the game _as part_ of his recovery, that it was his way of proving that he was getting better—because he'd been "controlling" himself thus far—but he was playing with fire. He was already back to having phone sex.

And the sudden discovery that this incident with Bella's mother—an incident that, in his mind, was very much tangled up with the feelings that drove him towards addiction—the discovery that it had never happened, was just too much.

Edward's addiction was already a source of so much humiliation for him. Now, to learn that it was partly inspired by a lie was like a kick in the teeth.

He had been so very wrong, and everything he'd done for the last near decade had only compounded the wrong.

Not knowing what to do with all of that, Edward had decided to shove it all to one side, and to pretend his conversation with Tyler hadn't happened. At least for now.

"So, what do you think?" he heard Bella asking behind him just then.

Unbeknownst to Edward, Bella had watched him for a while through the window of the coffee shop, trying to work up her nerve to come inside.

"Very steampunk," Edward observed, somewhat uneasily as he turned to greet her.

"If you say so," Bella shrugged, her eyes on the tiny alcove that had drawn Edward's attention. She'd suggested this coffeehouse with that alcove in mind. Her conversations with Edward tended to be NC-17, and Bella was tired of trying to keep her voice down for fear of offending innocent ears. Wary of meeting Edward at his apartment, and warier still of inviting him back to hers, Bella had sought a spot that was both private enough for them to converse comfortably, without the risk of eavesdroppers, and public enough to ensure that their conversation didn't become _too_ comfortable. Bella also felt like she needed to take back some of the ground in their relationship. She couldn't keep letting Edward call of the shots. So when Edward had asked about meeting her for coffee, she'd chosen the location.

But Bella was still nervous. "The other grad students like coming here. I think it turns into a bar at night."

As they reached the counter, Bella gave the barrista her drink order.

When Edward placed his own order, Bella could hear the smile in his voice.

"What's so funny?" Bella asked, not really wanting to hear the answer, afraid that he was laughing at her.

"You."

"Me?"

"You and this place. You're a hipster. I didn't realize before."

"A hipster?" Bella felt a flare of annoyance and decided to hold onto it for the confidence it gave her. "What makes you think that I'm a hipster?"

"Just look at you. And this place. You ordered a drink called the Bloody Englishman and a scone."

Bella looked down at herself. She'd donned a simple flannel shirt and an old pair of jeans, a much beloved outfit, choosing it in part because it was so very worn—the flannel soft and the jeans fitting snugly over her hips, ragged white threads on one knee, it made her feel like she was still herself—and in part because it wasn't in the least bit sexy, at least, not in her opinion. She'd made her selection with the intention of discouraging any notion that she was trying to seduce Edward, even if that was exactly what she was trying to do.

Not knowing why it bothered her so much that Edward was calling her a hipster, Bella felt defensive. "I bought these clothes in a thrift shop because I can't afford any better, not because it's fashionable. I honestly need my glasses. I can't see without them. And the combination of raspberry, mocha, and coffee in a Bloody Englishman is a delight to the senses. The scone requires no explanation. It is a scone."

Amused by Bella's explanation, and her delivery, given without guile, Edward paid for both of them (despite Bella's protests) and, with tray in hand, he followed Bella to the alcove.

"I put us on the list," Bella said by way of excuse, and glancing at a schedule hanging on the entrance, Edward saw that Bella's name was indeed on the list. She'd put them down for two hours.

"It's very cozy in here," Edward observed as they took their seats.

Bella nodded. "Exactly. It's functional, not hipster." She was still smarting over the attribution, perhaps because it implied Edward's realization that she was being duplicitous with him. She didn't like the insinuation, even if it was true.

"Do you think that I could get a door like that for my bedroom?" Edward asked, because he knew that it would annoy her and because he could tell that she was uneasy, if not for the same reasons that he was uneasy, and he wanted to return them to familiar ground. They were used to fighting, after all.

"You think there's really anything going on in there that's worth locking up?" Bella tried to joke back, but her voice was weak.

Edward hated this. Hated that she was so obviously skittish. He couldn't help thinking that it was because he'd been pushing her too hard. But part of him wondered if she was sensing his own discomfort, and he didn't want to talk about that.

He took a sip of his tea and glanced up at the exposed pipes in the ceiling. The walls were grey and there was a seascape in a circular frame. It was supposed to be a porthole, he realized. They were supposed to be in a submarine.

Suddenly, Edward wondered if that was why she'd chosen this place. He wondered if Bella had remembered his fondness for Jules Verne.

They knew the worst things about each other, yes, but some small things, too. Some things that weren't bad at all.

Rolling his eyes at himself, Edward reached into his pocket and pulled out a round locket on a long chain, setting it on the table.

"What's this?" Bella asked.

"Open it."

Wondering what Edward was playing at, Bella picked up the locket and opened it, then let out a peel of laughter. "Oh, who's the hipster now?"

Edward didn't deny it. "Yeah, yeah, I own a pocket watch. So what?"

"Do you really carry this around with you?"

Tucking the watch back into his pocket, Edward hitched a shoulder. "Well, I've got it on me today. What do you think?"

Bella smiled into her coffee, having removed the lid in order to enjoy the whipped cream. "You secretly _love_ this place. Admit it. You _like_ Steampunk." There was a trace of whipped cream on Bella's lips.

Watching Bella lick her lips, Edward found himself smiling back at her. "Don't you remember how I was always reading Jules Verne?"

"You were?" Bella seemed genuinely surprised.

"And H. G. Wells. Anything sci-fi, really. Turn of the century was my favorite."

"Did I know that? I don't remember. I just remember you going around in your leather jacket and smoking, trying not to get caught by Carlisle and Esme. Pretending to be James Dean."

"I wasn't _pretending_ to be James Dean. I _was_ James Dean."

"Right. James Dean with a hard-on for _10,000 Leagues under the Sea._ "

"It's _20,000 Leagues_."

"Nerd."

"Says the girl in hipster glasses who always had her nose in a book."

Bella smiled back at Edward, beginning to forget her nervousness about seeing him again. Couldn't they just keep going on like this? Enjoying this easy camaraderie, as if they were friends?

But Bella knew that she didn't have any business being friends with Edward.

"What's that?" she asked, eyeing the paperback peeking out of the pocket of the coat Edward had swung over the back of his chair.

Edward had forgotten about that. He had planned on giving her the book for some time now, but he'd had second-thoughts after the phone call. He'd put it in his pocket that morning in a sudden fit of irritation with himself, aggravated at his own skittishness. But he wasn't sure about giving it to her.

She could see him hesitating. "Well what is it?" she asked.

Telling himself to man up, Edward handed her the book.

Bella read the title out loud. " _Therese the Philosopher_."

"Have you read it?" Edward asked.

Shaking her head, Bella chided him. "I thought you said that I read too much."

"I'm making an exception, this one time," Edward sad lightly. "Besides, you like reading. And this is total war. I will corrupt you in every way imaginable." That was his original intention, at least. For lack of a firm decision to back off of this objective, Edward decided to push his uncertainties aside.

"Every way?" Bella sounded skeptical.

"Absolutely."

Narrowing her eyes at Edward, Bella remembered the book that she'd given him. "Have you read the Seneca yet?"

"I've started it," Edward answered, fiddling with tea.

Sensing misdirection, Bella prodded. "How much have you read?"

"The title."

"Are you serious? I sent you all of those pictures and you haven't even started reading the book that I gave you?"

Edward shrugged. "I don't want to read some moralizing asshole." The book was no doubt chock-full of sanctimonious bullshit. Why else would Bella have given it to him?

"Seneca's not a moralizing asshole. He tutored Nero. _Nero!_ You know, the guy who fiddled while Rome burned, which isn't true, actually, but it's the sort of thing he'd do. Seneca trained him, and then smoothed the way for Nero when he took power. So Seneca knows a thing or two about being a fuck up."

"A fuck up, like me you mean?" Edward smiled grimly.

"No. I just mean that he keeps it real."

Edward was unimpressed. "So he's what? Mentor to the Roman version of American Psycho? Seneca just sat back and counted coins while Nero did—whatever it is that Nero did?" Edward knew that Nero was supposed to be a bad guy, but he wasn't sure exactly what crimes Nero was supposed to have committed, especially now that it seemed that Nero had not fiddled while Rome burned.

"Seneca killed himself. It's considered one of the noble deaths. He was praised for it."

"Praised? For killing himself?" Edward was trying to understand why the hell Bella had given him a book like this. "What's noble about that?"

But Bella seemed nonplussed. "Nero had sent for him, and Seneca knew what that meant. He was going to die one way or another. So he decided to face death on his own terms. He took his own life."

"You don't think he should have tried to fight back? Stood up to Nero?"

"The Romans didn't view suicide the same way we do. Killing himself like that was meant to be a slap in Nero's face."

"You're telling me that you're ok with suicide?" Edward asked.

"Asking me how I feel about suicide is different than asking me the historical question of how the Romans felt about suicide."

Edward wasn't going to let her avoid the question. Not about something like this. "I'm asking you. How do _you_ feel about suicide?"

Bella frowned. "It's not for me to say."

Edward wasn't buying it. "Bullshit. If you try to kill yourself today in America, they put you in the hospital, against your will, and charge you for all of the trouble you've given them. There're actual laws on the books condemning suicide. So don't tell me that you don't think you have a right to say one way or the other."

Taken aback by the intensity of Edward's feelings on the subject, Bella realized that he had to have some sort of personal stake in the issue. He'd known someone who had killed himself (or had tried to), or else he had treated suicide cases. Either way, this mattered to him.

Bella didn't want to get into a fight with him. She didn't want to hurt Edward, either, but she wasn't going to lie.

"I think that a person can be of sound mind and want to die at the same time," she said carefully. "I think that suicide can be a rational decision."

"You don't think that's unhumanitarian of you?" Edward asked in a snide tone.

"What's more humanitarian than giving a person power over whether he lives or dies?"

Edward didn't reply. He wanted to undo the last two minutes of their conversation. Go back to the part where they were arguing about whether or not she was a hipster.

He had only himself to blame for the turn in the conversation, however. Edward had overreacted, first to the book that Bella wanted him to read and then to the whole suicide issue. What the fuck was his problem?

It wasn't as if Bella could possibly know about the times that Edward sat in the break room staring out the window at the street below.

Edward forced himself to laugh. "You want me to take moral advice from a guy who killed himself?"

Bella smiled tentatively. "Well, not about the suicide part. And anyhow, it's a different time. Suicide doesn't mean the same thing anymore. I think that if I was sentenced to death that it might be worth it to wait for the last second, to make them kill me, in case I got a reprieve."

"And to face down the motherfuckers who were doing it to you."

"That too."

 _Make them take it from you_ , Edward thought, agreeing, contradictorily, because it oh too easy for Edward to imagine throwing his own life away.

Not wanting to think about that anymore, he gestured at the _Terese_. "I don't know if the guy who wrote it was ever involved in any scandals." That was a lie. The Marquis d'Argens had tried to kill himself at least once. But Edward didn't want to keep talking about that.

"I'm just happy it isn't something by the Marquis de Sade," Bella replied.

Edward arched an eyebrow. "You would have read the Marquis de Sade?"

"I think that the real question is, would you have asked me to read the Marquis de Sade?"

"My reading preferences aren't the issue. Yours are. Don't ask me to believe that you've remained uncorrupted if you really read such filthy stuff." He attempted to leer at Bella, trying mightily to steer the conversation once and for all away from suicide.

Not that Edward wasn't interested in the answer. If Bella admitted to reading the Marquis de Sade, let alone enjoying it, he would be surprised, to say the least. The Marquis de Sade was to _Fifty Shades of Gray_ what _Fifty Shades of Gray_ was to _Twilight_. Taking philosophically, the Marquis de Sade raised some interesting points. But applied to the real world, he was simply untenable. There was a difference between rough, consensual sex and mindless, criminal brutality.

"I haven't read the Marquis de Sade. I have, however, read Achilles Tatius and the other Roman writers that the Marquis enjoyed so much."

"Oh really?" Edward folded his hands together in mock interest. "Do tell."

"He wrote an essay about it. The Marquis, I mean. He cited them as inspiration. That's how I know about it."

"And were the Romans indeed inspiring?"

Bella eyed Edward, fairly certain that she was being set up, but not exactly sure how. "At his best, Achilles Tatius isn't bad. Remember those quotes from Ovid that you texted to me?"

Edward had to think about it. Then he grinned. " _How sweet it is to hear her voice quaver as she tells me the joy she feels, and to hear her imploring me to slacken my speed so as to prolong her bliss. How I love to see her, drunk with delight, gazing with swooning eyes upon me, or, languishing with love._ "

Bella's eyes widened in surprise as she felt the blush spread across her cheeks. But she wouldn't let herself break his gaze. She couldn't decide if her blush was because of the meaning of the words coming out of his mouth or because he'd gone to the trouble of memorizing a piece of literature related to her. "You memorized it."

"It was worth memorizing."

Ignoring that, Bella explained: "Anyhow, Achilles Tatius basically plagiarized Ovid on that point." Trying to put her embarrassment behind her, Bella hitched a shoulder. "Two men, waxing lyrical about female orgasms, who'd a thought?"

"You sound surprised," Edward observed.

"It's surprising to find two men who thought it was worthwhile to try and satisfy their lady loves, especially in such a male dominated world."

"And Achilles Tatius at his worst? You said the Ovid quote was him at his best."

"Snuff porn."

"But it was just a book, right?" Edward confirmed. He was second-guessing his gift to Bella, but he reminded himself that _Terese_ was a far cry from the Marquis de Sade.

Bella's eyes narrowed. "So violent porn's ok if it's not real? You don't think there's any connection to the real world?"

"A person has to be held responsible for his actions, regardless of where the idea came from. You don't believe in censorship, do you?" Edward asked, not because he was, in fact, a fan of violent porn, but because he was so used to playing the devil's advocate with Bella, always taking up the opposite stance, in every situation.

He knew from his own experience that it was all too easy for a person to let himself become carried away by particularly provocative media. Edward had once had sex with a woman who insisted that they copulate while reenacting a Klimt painting. It was an innocent enough perversion, but a perversion nonetheless.

In any case, Edward refused to believe that Bella thought that people were really so weak, so malleable, as to cede personal responsibility. What would she really think, for instance, if he told her that he blamed the (false) rumors about his relationship with her mother (at least partially) for his addiction?

He wouldn't call it an "addiction," of course, not when talking to Bella.

He would call it hedonism.

A penchant for physical pleasure that was a tab bit heated.

A tad out of control.

(He was getting better, though.)

"That's not really the point is it?" Bella asked, avoiding the question. She'd seen the studies on the links between violent imagery and real world violence. The evidence for those links was weak, at best, but Bella had also seen too much of that real world violence for herself, hadn't she? She'd seen the way men had treated her mother. Where had they gotten those ideas?

But as anyone familiar with psychology knows, a person who feels powerless will invent ways to regain some power. And Bella was fond of certain Stoic philosophers, who argued that a person always has a choice. Even in the shittiest situation, a person has a choice. All bad choices. Choices so bad that they shouldn't even be called choices. But choices nonetheless.

So Bella believed in personal choice. She believed that people might be encouraged to do bad things, but the decision to do evil was still a choice.

And yes, violent people were consumers of violent imagery. Did that mean that this imagery had to be banned altogether?

If so, where did a person draw the line? Was _50 Shades of Gray_ out, along with bondage-inspired _Vogue_ photo shoots, Maplethorpe photos and Hieronymous Bosche paintings?

Bella didn't want to have to cede any of that ground to Edward, though. Didn't want him to think that she was in any way sympathetic to the side she assumed he'd taken.

"What _is_ the point then?" Edward wanted to know.

"The point is that people like the Marquis de Sade think that they should be able to have whatever they want, even the things that they shouldn't be able to have. And because they're pissed that someone tries to deny them something, they take their hostility out on the objects of their desire. As though their desire for something is justification enough for its seizure."

"But you can't lump everyone together under that umbrella," Edward argued.

Bella shrugged off his complaint. "Libertines then, hedonists today. People like you."

 _Fuck that_. Edward had never taken anything that wasn't freely offered by consent. "People like _me_? I have _never_ —"

"I'm not saying that you would," Bella said, backpedalling, because that was exactly what she _had_ said. "But what's the point of this whole contest that you and I are having? You say that you want to see me corrupted. Why? Because you're pissed that I have something you don't."

" _Have_ something? What do you have?"

"Self-sufficiency."

Edward found himself growing annoyed, because at least part of him thought that something good could come to Bella out of this contest. He honestly thought that she was making a mistake with the way that she was apparently leading her life. "If I'm upset, it's because I don't want to see you denying yourself anything."

"Please. Achilles Tatius' virgin heroine crying out for the wheel, the whip, and a bloody lip, rather than give herself to her captor. And the Christian virgins being martyred in the most excruciating ways for the very same reason, the martyrologies getting more and more graphic with each retelling. _Christian_ audiences salivating to hear all about how the virgin was threatened with rape, her clothes rent from her body and her flesh scoured with the whip. Because the audience got off on it."

"Got off on it?"

"The audience members _wanted_ the virgins to suffer. Just like the Marquis de Sade, so angry that a woman tried to tell him 'no.' And yet both you and the Marquis de Sade think that virginity's a waste of time."

Edward didn't like that he was getting lumped together with the Marquis de Sade again.

Bella continued. "Tell me this, if virginity is such a lamentable state, why is it such an object of fascination? Everyone's always so interested in a virgin's virginity. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was sour grapes."

"Sour grapes?" Edward was having trouble keeping up.

"Otherwise, why's everyone so interested? And so angry? Like the virgins have something that everyone else has lost. Like everyone else is jealous of the virgins for what they have."

"I don't think that's it," Edward said, shaking his head. "Sure, people enjoy watching a violent movie like _Die Hard_. But that's because they want John McClain to win, not lose. Don't Christians want martyrs to win? Isn't that what the martyrs died for? So they could go to heaven? John McClain has to walk barefoot through glass, and a martyr had to—whatever it is that martyrs did. But the worst the punishment, the better the reward."

Edward was talking out of his ass, making it up as he went, because he knew nothing about martyrdom and he'd never really thought about why people watch violent movies like _Die Hard._

And yeah, maybe there were a few sick, sadistic fucks who enjoyed the Marquis de Sade because they were glad that the virgin didn't get away, but that wasn't Edward.

But, it was perversion, not anger, that had Edward interested in Bella.

Or was it? He wanted to bring her down to his level so that he wouldn't have to feel so bad about himself. There had to be a shade of malice in that.

That bullshit about wanting what was best for her was just that, bullshit. He was no good for her.

Bella was shaking her finger at him. "I'm not surprised that you're so fascinated by virginity, Steampunk addict that you are. I know about all of those Victorian fetishes."

Disliking the direction of the conversation, Edward said quietly, "Those fetishes come from repressed urges. There's nothing repressed about me." Edward's knowledge of the fetishes that Bella had mentioned was limited, but he recalled that they had something to do with a penchant for virginity. He was fairly certain that individuals who knew more about the subject than him had concluded that those fetishes were to be blamed on people not being allowed to admit their desires for pleasure.

"Because you're so open-minded."

"I'm an open book about my desires and longings. Ask me anything you want."

"Anything?"

"I'm not in the least bit inhibited when it comes to sex. I would think you'd know that after our last phone call."

So far, they'd been carefully avoiding any mention of the last time they had spoken, but Edward didn't see the point in putting it off any longer. If he'd gone too far with that call, he might as well hear it now.

For Bella's part, she'd decided that her imaginary Edward wasn't quite right. The Edward she'd pictured as she pleasured herself didn't quite match the man before her now. Sitting in that coffeehouse, listening to Edward talk, Bella had taken the opportunity to study him. The real Edward, she realized, had a scar over his left eye. She remembered now that he had gotten that scar when he was sixteen, in a fight at school. She never did find out what that fight was about. The blemish made him seem more human.

But that in and of itself was a problem, wasn't it? She didn't want him to seem human, to seem vulnerable, because then she would have to consider his feelings.

She preferred the Edward who didn't care about anyone else. She could hurt him and not give a damn.

It would be harder to pretend to like him, though, if he was a jerk.

It was all so fucked up.

And he still hadn't explained the phone call, or why he'd stopped asking for the pictures.

So Bella forced herself to ask the question she'd been dreading. "Why'd you stop? Why'd you stop asking for pictures?" She made herself meet his eyes, suspicious of a lie.

Edward had no intention of answering truthfully. He wasn't going to tell Bella about his addiction, or that he was afraid that the pictures were threatening his recovery. "You were right. It's risky sending pictures like that. You want to be a teacher."

"Oh, I thought—" Bella broke off, looking away.

"What?"

Bella's face was burning. "It doesn't matter."

"Tell me."

"It's stupid."

"I'm sure it isn't."

Bella shook her head, refusing to reply.

"What? You think I didn't like the pictures?" Edward guessed. She wasn't acting as though she was angry about them. Instead, she seemed embarrassed. As though she imagined that the pictures had been unwanted.

The way that Bella shrugged her shoulders confirmed his suspicion.

And because he felt like he'd been on the losing side of every conversation that day, he decided to tease her a bit. "Oh, I _liked_ the pictures alright. I _liked_ them just as much as I _liked_ your lecture."

Bella wondered if that meant—

"What?" Bella gasped, looking back up at him. "Are you—"

Edward just smirked back at her, because it was true, fucked up as it was.

She shook her head again. "You're not really— You don't _get off_ on things like that, do you?"

"I get off on a variety of things, as many times a day as possible. It's healthy, you know."

Bella didn't reply at first. On the one hand, she knew that Edward's confession suggested that he was falling in line with Tanya's plan. On the other hand, she hadn't really thought about what he might have been doing with the pictures once he received them. The pictures weren't meant for him. She'd taken them for herself. That she'd sent them on to him was neither here nor there, at least in her mind.

"How many times a day?" Bella asked.

Edward shrugged, sailing smoothly into the lie. "Two. Three times usually." The number was actually higher, but he knew that the lie was already high enough to set off alarm bells.

"Three times a day?! And it doesn't fall off?"

"I assure you that everything's in working order, ma'am."

The words were out of Bella's mouth before she'd really had a chance to consider them. "You can't masturbate or have sex anymore."

The smirk fell off of Edward's face. "What?"

"You heard me."

"Are you serious?"

Bella nodded. "Those are my conditions."

"What if I meet the love of my life? I can't have sex with her?"

Bella blinked. Edward had a point. He could very well meet the love of his life. Who was Bella to tell him that he couldn't fall in love?

She pushed that question out of her head and focused on the issue at hand. "You're telling me that you can't hold off for a while, until our so-called contest is through? If you really love her, you can wait."

Edward was shaking his head. "You, of anyone, should know that's asking me not to masturbate is too much."

"Me? Why me?"

"Well, you're using the vibrator now."

It was Bella's turn to smile. "I haven't used it."

"What? But the first picture you sent me—"

"I just posed with it. I didn't use it."

Edward frowned. "But you were supposed to use it. Those were _my_ conditions off the contest."

"You want me to use the vibrator, don't masturbate. Or have sex. Of any kind. No insertion. No hand jobs. No blow jobs."

"That's crossing the line."

"Why? You think I should use a vibrator. Why can't I tell you not to get off?"

"What you're asking is so fucked up, I can't even—" Edward broke off.

"Do you or do you not want me to use the vibrator?"

"I do."

"Well, those are my terms." Bella crossed her arms.

"Fuck!"

"You'll survive. And just think about how good it'll be when you finally get to have sex again. All of that pent up—tension."

Edward glared at her. "I'll want detailed notes."

"Notes?"

"About you getting off."

Bella's smile dropped from her lips. "The fuck you talking about?"

Edward was smirking again. "I expect to hear all the delicious details about your fun with the vibrator. Or better yet, I want for you to give me a call while you're using it. After all, I let you listen to me."

"What the fuck for?"

"The behavior of the elderly ascetic is of avid interest to me. It's so rare to come across one in the wild. Some people don't even believe they exist. Do you think I could write an article on you? _The New England Journal of Medicine_ would be sure to publish it."

 **AN:**

 **When originally writing this story, I assumed that Bella's obvious duplicity would render her so unlikable that I would have to invest significant effort in justifying/explaining her actions. Alas, my concentration on her character appears to have left Edward shortchanged. Some readers still complain that he isn't likable. In an effort to rectify that, I've made slight revisions to chapters 2, 4-7, and 10-11 to reflect more of his background, his struggle with his addiction and his reasons for distrusting Bella. I hope this makes him more likable.**

 **As for the current chapter, I hope that I've succeeded in making philosophical discourse interesting. To that end, I'm abbreviating arguments, which means that chapters 13-16 hop around a lot. And since Edward and Bella are supposed to be touting these arguments because they actually believe in them—and have deep-seated personal reasons for believing in them—Edward and Bella's emotions are all over the place too. I would love to know if you think I'm pulling this off: 1) making the arguments interesting and believable, 2) selling Edward/Bella's personal commitments to the debates, and 3) adequately guiding them through the rollercoaster of emotions. This request pertains to the story as a whole but especially these four chapters. Much appreciated!**

 **I also hope that Cheney's comments at the beginning of this chapter haven't implied that Edward is magically cured. I am sick of fics where someone else tells a character that he/she has changed (and of course the reader knows that the change was caused by said character falling in love). So I feel like a jerk for doing this – I wanted to intro Cheney, though, and I wanted to show that Edward is no longer sitting in the break room thinking dismal thoughts all of the time and that he is maybe making some breakthroughs in recovering from his addiction. I hope that the scene doesn't come off as clichéd as I feel it does.**

 **If you are interested in the issue of suicide and "noble deaths" in the Roman world, good sources include** **Jan Willem van Henten and Friedrich Avemarie,** _ **Martyrdom and Noble Death: Selected Texts from Graeco-Roman, Jewish and Christian Martyrdom**_ **, and Arthur** **Droge and James Tabor,** _ **A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom among Christians and Jews in Antiquity**_ **.**

 **The Marquis d'Argens is believed to be the author of** _ **Terese,**_ **but this isn't a hundred percent certain.**

 **For the Marquis de Sade's reference to Achilles Tatius, see Marquis De Sade, "An Essay on Novels." In** _ **The Crimes of Love: Heroic and Tragic Tales, Preceded by an Essay on Novels,**_ **edited and translated by David Coward, 3-20.**

 **If you are interested, David Frankfurter argues that early Christian audiences enjoyed tales of sexual violence against female martyrs because the audiences in question were dominated by male voices who were frustrated that they were being denied sexual release thanks to Christianity's stringent ascetic code. These male audience members found release for their frustration by consuming narratives in which hostility was taken out on the female bodies that were otherwise inaccessible. That is, men who were angry that they couldn't have sex enjoyed stories about the objects of their fantasies suffering sexual violence. And yes, the martyrs who suffered** _ **sexual**_ **violence (attacks to their genitals, threats of rape/actual rape, disrobing, etc.) were predominately female. See David Frankfurter,** **"Martyrology and the Prurient Gaze."** _ **Journal of Early Christian Studies**_ **17 (2009): 215-45. This argument is compelling insofar as it points out that we really have very little access to the voices of women, both as audience members and as the subjects of martyrological narratives. However, it annoys me insofar as it seems complicit with the project of silencing these women: It ignores (the limited) evidence suggesting that these narratives did, in fact, have female audiences and that female ascetics in fact found a sense of empowerment through suffering (self-imposed or not) to the extent that this suffering was thought to aid their own salvation and the salvation of others. Granted, the evidence for the latter comes mostly from the medieval period. It has been discussed at great length by Caroline Walker Bynum.**

 **Regarding the discussion of violent imagery, studies suggest that repeated exposure to violent imagery decreases the anxiety and fear generated by viewers in response to this imagery, thereby reducing the audience's potential empathy towards the victims and increasing the level of violence that must be presented to the audience in order for a given act to be recognized as** _ **violence**_ **. This is not always maladaptive. Consider, for instance, the case of soldiers who need to be able to maintain composure in the face of extreme violence. See** **Amanda Mabry and Monique Turner, "Arousal and Aggressive Content, Theory and Psychology of," in Matthew** **Eastin** **,** **editor.** _ **Encyclopedia of Media Violence**_ **(Washington, D.C.: Sage, 2013),** **41\. For a fair summary of this argument and very cogent critiques see Michael Beatty** **and Micelle Pence, "Verbal Aggressiveness as an Expression of Selected Biological Influences," in** _ **Arguments, Aggression, and Conflict: New Directions in Theory and Research,**_ **eds. Theodore Avtgis and Andrew Rancer (New York: Routledge 2010),** **16; Gary Jensen, "** **Social Learning and Violent Behavior," in** _ **The Cambridge Handbook of Violent Behavior and Aggression**_ **, Daniel Flannery, Alexander Vazsonyi, and Irwin Waldman, eds. (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009)** **,** **643; Harold Schechter,** _ **Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment**_ **(New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005).**

 **Rec: Diamond in the rough:** _ **Play Dates**_ **by SarahCullen17 -** Bella is a single mother of a five-year-old son, Emerson. Edward is a single father of a five-year-old daughter, Emmy. They've given up on finding love for a very long time until their children become playground buddies. Nominated for a TwiFiction Award! Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance/Family - Bella, Edward - Chapters: 19 - Words: 63,684 - Reviews: 792 - Favs: 920 - Follows: 385 - Updated: Jan 11, 2011 - Published: Nov 25, 2010 - Status: Complete - id: 6502829


	14. Chapter 14

**Song rec for this chapter is** _ **In This Moment'**_ **s** __ **"Whore" (a song that, in some ways, applies to the story as a whole).**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

" _These are some of the mysteries of Love in which you may become an initiate. The one who approaches these mysteries the right way begins with the love of one body and he should note that the love in one body is akin to the beauty in another body, and if we must pursue beauty in essence, it is great folly not to believe that the beauty in all such bodies is one and the same. The right way to approach the things of love, or to be led there by another, is this: beginning from these beautiful things, to mount for that beauty's sake ever upwards, as by a flight of steps, from one to two, and from two to all beautiful bodies, and from beautiful bodies to beautiful pursuits and practices, and from practices to beautiful learnings, so that from learnings he may come at last to that perfect learning which is the learning solely of that beauty itself, and may know at last that which is the perfection of all beauty. There in life and there alone is life worth living for man, while he contemplates Beauty itself._ " - Plato's _Symposium_ [abridged] translated by W. H. D. Rouse

Chapter 14

The thing is, Edward _knew_ that it made no sense. He _knew_ that he should've been more suspicious when his so-called friends told him that he'd had sex with Bella's mother. He hated Renee. He knew that she was no good the minute he laid eyes on her. There was just something about her that just reminded him of his own birth mother.

The night it supposedly happened, he went out drinking with his friends. Edward had started drinking more. The alcohol made it easier—made everything easier—but it made socializing so much easier, and socializing was so damn important to his parents. They were constantly riding him, wanting him to fit in. Never mind that Edward just wanted to be left alone.

So Edward was drinking, because it made it easier to fit in, and that was just fine with his "friends," because there was nothing else to do in that hick town. They would drive out to a clearing in the woods and get hammered, driving back once they were sober.

That night, for some reason, Marcus had brought his dog, and when the dog took off after some squirrel, Marcus insisted that they try and find it. So they were walking along the side of the road, calling that damn dog's name. And they made it all of the way back to the edge of town before the dog returned.

Edward remembered the motel. He remembered Renee standing in the doorway of one of the rooms, a bottle of liquor in one hand.

"Want something to drink?" she asked.

It didn't make any sense. Renee was supposed to be staying at Bella's place while the Chief was recovering from his accident. Why was she at the motel?

Edward hung back.

"Relax, we're just going to get a drink," Tyler said, punching his shoulder.

And that was the last thing Edward could remember. He couldn't remember getting back to Tyler's place that night. He certainly couldn't recall anything that had happened inside of that motel room.

If Edward had known what Renee was there for, he would've steered clear. If he'd been lucid, he would have told Renee to go home to her daughter.

So Edward should've known better to believe the stories. He should've known that there was no way that he would've had sex with Renee.

Now that he knew the truth, Edward was equal parts relieved and angry. Relieved, because he had been hating himself for so very long, certain that he was in fact a pervert, just like his mother had always said. Only a pervert would've had sex with Renee.

At the same time, he was so angry—just so very very angry, because he couldn't help feeling like this was it: Believing that he'd had sex with Renee was the beginning of his addiction.

In fact, the very next weekend, the weekend after his supposed tryst with Renee, Edward had had sex with Lauren and some other female—he didn't even know her name—the three of them getting drunk and high. He'd been shocked that Lauren was willing to have a threesome. Shocked and maybe a little disappointed, and the combination of those two factors made it seem all the more fitting that Edward join in.

"What are you doing to yourself?" his father had asked him when Edward came home.

 _What_ was _he doing to himself?_

Edward was doing his best to destroy himself, that was what he was doing.

There was a sick, vindictive pleasure to being the one in charge of his own self-destruction. Aside from the pleasure of sex itself, Edward found it strangely gratifying to seek out a new low. If Edward was going to live down to his mother's expectations, well he was going to do a damn good job out of it.

Except that none of that was true, was it? It was all based on a lie. Edward had never had sex with Renee.

Now that he knew the truth, Edward felt an awful temptation to blame everything on his so-called friends for lying to him, and on Renee.

But that would mean that Edward was absolving himself of all responsibility. And he knew that that was risky in terms of his recovery. Addicts were supposed to take responsibility for their actions. It was a way to regain control. And Edward knew that he had only himself to blame for his situation. So as much as he wanted to blame others, he resisted the temptation.

Of course, taking responsibility for an addiction is just one of many steps that an addict is supposed to take in the course of a recovery. Addicts are also supposed to make amends.

Emmett was chief among the individuals deserving an apology from Edward. To this end, Edward decided to ask Emmett over for a beer. Having reflected on the best way to approach the issue, Edward had concluded that asking his step-brother over for a beer was the best strategy, not only because it would be expedient, but also because "getting together to have a beer" was something "normal" brothers would do. Decision made, Edward made his proposal.

Alas Emmett, not being an idiot, knew something was up.

"You're asking _me_ to come over for a _beer_?" Emmett confirmed.

Edward wasn't surprised at Emmett's obvious reluctance. It had taken Edward a while to screw up the courage to extend the invitation. "Yeah, a beer," Edward replied, glad that this discussion was being carried out over the phone.

Emmett thought about it. "Sure, I'll come over." If nothing else, Emmett figured he'd get to find out just what had Edward acting so strangely lately.

And by acting strangely, Emmett meant the whole thing where Edward pretended to take an interest in his family. That just wasn't Edward's style.

In preparation for this brotherly tete-a-tete, Edward procured a variety of beers. And upon Emmett's arrival on the day in question, Edward set the television to ESPN, assuming (rightly) that Emmett would be content with watching highlights while Edward came up with the right words.

Emmett sipped his beer, watched sports highlights, and spied Edward out of the corner of his eye.

Because Edward was clearly uncomfortable. Several times, Edward opened his mouth to start, only to shut it again. Fiddling with the label on his water bottle, Edward shook his head at himself.

"What's got your panties in a bunch?" Emmett asked at last.

Edward shrugged. "It's nothing."

"If you say so." Emmett turned back to the television.

"Actually, I did ask you over here for a reason."

"You need a kidney?" Emmett asked. "Because you know we're not really related, right?"

Edward grimaced. "I do have something to tell you."

"Well tell me." Emmett muted the television.

"It's not easy."

"How hard could it be?"

"Well, I know that I haven't been the greatest brother."

Emmett felt a kernel of annoyance. As much as he'd been expecting it, he wasn't in the mood for a heart-to-heart. "You making amends or something? What is this, some 12 Steps shit?"

Edward's face hardened.

"Shit." Despite his annoyance with Edward, Emmett felt like a jerk. "It is. Sorry. I just didn't realize that you drank that much."

Edward _didn't_ drink that much. Not since that night that Bella was attacked in Port Angeles.

"I don't," Edward said. "I'm not an alcoholic."

Emmett's face scrunched up in confusion. "Is this some sort of denial thing?"

"I'm not in denial. I don't deny that I'm an addict. But alcohol's not the problem."

"Jesus Christ, drugs?"

"It's not drugs."

"Then what?"

 _Fuck_. Edward didn't want to have to say it out loud. He sighed. "You know how I had sex with two of your girlfriends?"

Emmett snorted. "Uh, yeah. Kind of hard to forget."

"Well." Edward shrugged. "It was kind of like—I mean, I'm not making excuses for myself—it was kind of like I couldn't help myself."

"Fuck you."

"No, really. I'm serious."

Emmett stared at him. "I can't decide if I want to deck you or if I feel really sorry for you."

"Go ahead, deck me. I deserve it. I'm really not saying that I deserve a pass. I'm just trying to be honest with you."

"But you haven't," Emmett pointed out. "You haven't actually said anything."

Edward took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for having sex with your girlfriend."

"Girlfriend _ssss_."

"Girlfriends. I haven't been a good brother to you. I haven't been a good _person_. I'm trying to get better."

Emmett studied Edward for a minute. "So what, you're addicted to sex?"

Edward grimaced again, but he shrugged.

Emmett shook his head. "I don't get it. How does a person get addicted to sex?"

"Some people drink. Some people gamble. I have sex."

"Yeah but—" Emmett cut himself off. "Alright, I'm not saying that I forgive you, because I really don't, not yet. But I appreciate you apologizing. And I can tell that you've been _changing_ , I guess, _trying_ to be a better person. Hanging out, or whatever. Though I thought most of that was because you wanted to see Bella."

Edward glared at Emmett.

"What?" Emmett asked. "Are you denying it?"

"That's different."

"If you say so. I heard the rumors, you know, about Bella all of those years ago."

Edward bristled at the mention of these rumors, lies that he was sure had been put out there by the "good" people of Forks in an attempt to cover up what had actually happened in Port Angeles.

Emmett continued: "Did you have sex with Bella?"

Edward started coughing. "What? I'm not having sex with Bella."

"Not _now_ , I mean _then_. Did you have sex with Bella, back in high school?

"No. Why would you say that?" Edward, expecting Emmett to mention Port Angeles, decided that maybe a punch was going to be thrown after all, except that Edward would be the one throwing it.

Instead, Emmett said, "It just would make a lot of sense. It would explain why Alice cut her off."

"I never had sex with Bella," Edward reassured Emmett. He waited for Emmett to ask the obvious question.

But Emmett was holding his tongue.

"You can ask me whatever you want," Edward said.

"When did it start? Your addiction."

That wasn't the question Edward had been expecting. "After high school."

"Huh." Emmett seemed thoughtful.

"What?" Edward braced himself.

"Nothing."

"I know what you're thinking," Edward said, trying to force Emmett to just come out with it already.

"That this still doesn't explain why you were such an asshole before you left home?" Emmett said sarcastically, but not cruelly.

Ignoring the jibe, Edward clarified. "About Bella's mother."

"What about her?"

 _Really?_ Emmett was four years younger than Edward, but still.

"That rumor. I'm sure you heard it. People were saying that I had sex with Bella's mother, when she came to town after the Chief's accident."

Emmett was shaking his head. "You didn't have sex with Bella's mother."

Edward knew that. Well, he knew that _now_ at least. But he was taken aback by the conviction in Emmett's voice. "What makes you say that?"

"You _hated_ Renee. You told mom and dad that they shouldn't have let Bella go home with her. You never would've had sex with her." Emmett shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, I heard the rumors. But I knew that they were bullshit. And I told that to anyone stupid enough to mention them to me."

Did Emmett know Edward better than Edward knew himself?

"Yeah, well, I wish I'd known that back then," Edward said. " _I_ believed them."

Emmett burst out laughing. "What are you talking about?"

"I was so wasted that night. And everyone said that I had sex with her, so I just believed them."

"Are you really that stupid?"

"Apparently."

"You had some fucked up friends."

"They weren't my friends."

"You hung out with them."

Edward acknowledged that hard truth with a nod.

"I hope you've got better friends now," Emmett said.

Edward didn't reply, because he didn't really have friends, did he?

Emmett chuckled.

"What?" Edward asked, wary.

"Just picturing you making amends with Alice. I mean, that's what you're doing right now, right? Making amends?"

"Why would I have to make amends with Alice?" Edward asked, naïvely.

"Dude, you've been such a dick. You owe all of us apologies. Mom and dad, too."

"But that's just the way I am. I've always been a dick," Edward argued. "The addiction is new. The dickness—being a dick, that's not new. That's just me."

"Don't you think that's maybe one of the reasons for your addiction? That if you could form healthy relationships with people, you wouldn't need to use them for sex?"

 _Well fuck Emmett for being so fucking insightful_ , Edward thought viciously. And unfairly, because, goddammit _,_ Emmett was right.

Which was annoying because it had taken Edward several months of hard thought to come up with that little pearl of wisdom, and here was Emmett, casting it out without barely any effort at all.

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Edward's conversation with Alice went less smoothly than his conversation with Emmett, which was something of a surprise to him, since Alice always seemed so much more forgiving. Which just goes to show that people who seem nice are probably just suppressing a nasty vein of hostility.

"Have you apologized to Bella?" Alice asked, glancing up at him from the receipts she'd been sorting.

Edward had brought coffee, hoping to catch Alice alone before the boutique opened. The ploy had worked, and Alice had welcomed him inside.

But Alice had grown increasingly agitated as Edward explained his purpose in coming.

"What for?" Edward asked, because there was probably a long list of things that he had to apologize to Bella for, but that was between two of them.

Alice scoffed. "Sleeping with her mother, for one."

"Well, I didn't have sex with her."

"What?"

Edward smirked. "I'm completely innocent. But thanks for the confidence."

"But everyone said—"

"Did you once ask me?" Edward wanted to know, which was probably bullshit, because it was only recently that he'd learned that he was in fact innocent. "It was just a rumor. I never so much as _touched_ Renee."

"But Bella—" Alice continued.

"What about her?" Edward asked, because his relationship with Bella was his own business. Alice had no right to butt in.

"I had to _choose_ between the two of you," Alice explained, glaring at Edward.

"No you didn't."

"Of course I did."

"Bullshit."

Alice scoffed. "What was I supposed to do? Just go around pretending none of it had happened. You were a fucking basket-case. Don't pretend you weren't. From the _day_ you showed up in Forks it was always _Edward this_ and _Edward that._ We were always walking around on pins and needles waiting for you to crack up."

Edward knew that she was telling the truth. And damn if there wasn't anything he could do about it now.

"Well, I'm trying," Edward said. "If that's not good enough, I'll understand."

"God you're stupid," Alice huffed.

Edward felt his hackles rising.

"You're my brother," Alice went on. "I'll always have your back."

And Edward wondered, not for the first time, if it would have been different, if everything could have been different, if he'd just gotten his act together sooner.

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Meanwhile, Edward was struggling with the challenge Bella had imposed upon him. He didn't want to admit how difficult it was going to be to meet her demand that he curtail his sexual activities. He'd already stopped having sex with random women. But no masturbation?

Bella was clearly crossing a line with that demand. Edward would have been well within his rights to cheat. But for some reason, Edward didn't want to. He wanted to win his little contest with Bella, fair and square.

So he wouldn't masturbate and he wouldn't have sex. Even if it killed him.

But it wasn't easy. So Edward was bound and determined to turn the tables on Bella at the earliest opportunity.

When the time rolled around for all good boys and girls to get their drink on, Edward made sure that he was ready and waiting when Bella strolled into Newton's. A while later, with the bar filled to capacity and his siblings preoccupied with a YouTube video—"Oh my God, that's _hilarious,_ " Alice exclaimed—Edward ever so innocently drew Bella's attention to himself.

"You owe me a phone call," he said.

"Yeah, yeah," Bella blew him off, not needing a reminder that Edward expected a little listen the next time she engaged in an act of self-love.

"You _are_ using your gift, aren't you?" Edward asked, referring, of course, to the vibrator.

Bella shrugged.

Edward felt compelled to point out the injustice of Bella's inaction. "The whole point of me not getting off is you getting off."

Bella quirked an eyebrow.

"You know what I mean," Edward continued. "I'm not getting off. So you have to get off. That's the deal."

"Who says that I'm not getting off?"

"Well if you're not using my gift—"

Bella just looked at him.

Leaning in, Edward asked for clarification. "You _are_ getting off, though?"

"Hmph." Bella hitched a shoulder.

"How?"

"How do you think?" Bella asked.

"You're fucking killing me." And she _was_. He didn't know how she could sit there so calmly, while he was on this embargo, thanks to her, and she was just sitting there, like it was a joke.

Laughing, Bella shook her head. "Jesus, Edward. Calm down. You'd think that you were twelve years old, the way that you act."

"Just tell me."

"God gave us everything we need, right here." Bella gave a little jazz hands wave.

"How often?"

"Whenever I feel like it."

"How often?"

Bella sighed. "Why does it matter?"

"Because I can't. And it's your fault that I can't." Edward was surprised at himself for admitting his frustration.

"Fine. Maybe once a month. More often recently."

Edward perked up. "More often _recently_?"

Bella nodded, rolling her eyes.

"How often?" Edward asked again.

"You need to get a life."

"No, I need to live vicariously through your masturbation. Tell me."

"Once a day," Bella said.

"Why've you suddenly stepped it up?"

"I don't know. A change in the lunar cycle?"

"Bullshit." Edward wasn't buying it.

"I don't really care what you think."

"Doesn't matter. It's working. Your corruption."

Bella huffed.

Edward smirked at her. "Slowly, bit by bit, I'm wearing you down."

"Whatever."

"Hey," Emmett interrupted, "what are you two talking about over there?"

"Sex," Bella and Edward answered at the same time.

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Edward told himself that the new moratorium on masturbation was for his own good. He had been trying to get a hold on his appetites well before Bella reentered his life. Her challenge to him was really just the thing he needed to step up his efforts and really nip this problem of his in the bud.

Because it _was_ a problem. Sex with three or four different women a week—sometimes all in one night—having sex at work, letting it affect his everyday activities, he'd long passed the limit of what could be considered healthy.

Nevertheless, he'd been making progress. Edward congratulated himself for cutting at the sex, especially as he had done it all on his own too—fuck shrinks and their whole racket—but he was still masturbating far more frequently than was probably healthy. He'd lied to Bella about how often he'd indulge in that particular activity. _Two or three times a day?_ Try five or six times. Twice every morning and then at least once at night. Not to mention jerking off in a bathroom at work throughout the day, especially if he had a double shift.

Bella would not have been pleased to learn how he'd made use of the pictures she'd sent him If anything, they had only added fuel to the fire. Edward told Bella that he was deleting them. Not only had he _not_ deleted the photos, he'd downloaded them to his computer and had backed them up on a flashdrive.

Edward responded to the new embargo on masturbation by upping the mileage on his runs. And when he didn't have the option of running to relieve the tension, because he was stuck at work, for instance, he tried staving off the mounting anxiety—yes, _anxiety_ —with a variety of stress-relieving techniques, none of which were particularly successful. His fellow physicians were amused by the fact that, when he was on break, Edward (about whom there were so many nasty rumors) could usually be found sitting in the lotus position in the break room, his mouth full of gum, and his fingers tapping away at his phone as he played something that involved crushing candies.

And for want of anything better to do, Edward spent a great deal of his time reflecting upon the nature of his problem. He knew that he couldn't blame Renee, but that didn't meant that he couldn't speculate about the circumstances that had encouraged him to succumb to his addiction.

He understood the root of his problem. Or at least he thought that he did.

He had spent the first fourteen years of his life going without so very much. Without warmth whenever his bitch of a mother forgot to pay the electricity bill. Without food whenever she couldn't be bothered to come home. Without decent clothes and toys. Without basic human affection.

Even after the authorities had shipped Edward off to the Cullens, he still felt like there was something lacking. Food and clothes and all of the crap that a teenager might want weren't enough to make up for that basic inadequacy. Nor did the apparent affection of parents and siblings. None of it was enough.

It was simplistic—humans are just animals, after all—but Edward found something truly satisfying in the fact that he could provide himself with the small pleasure that is afforded by sex, and that he could have it whenever he wanted it.

For that brief instant when he got off, everything would be right in his world. Perfect. Complete. Done.

But the downward spiral that Edward's life had taken just before Bella reentered his life was enough for Edward to realize that he needed to rein it in. He was in danger of losing his job. He had already alienated his family. He was in danger of losing everything.

So he'd stopped seeing women. And as ridiculous as he thought Bella was being with her moratorium on masturbation, he figured that it would actually help him in the long run. Because no fucking way was he going to lose this contest with her.

Every time the temptation got to be a little too much, every time the stress at work pushed him right up to the edge, and he thought about stepping into the bathroom to relieve a little tension, he also thought of Bella, and how much he wanted to win their little game.

A game that, if Edward was successful, would produce a change in Bella that would be _interesting_ , to say the least.

And if Edward, who had been so good for so long, were to avail himself of the benefits of this transformation, well then, that would only be fair.

Not that Edward was really thinking about it in those terms.

 _Much_.

In any case, Edward was thinking of Bella. A lot.

Little did Edward know that Bella was doing quite a bit of thinking about Edward. Unfortunately, it was in a very different context.

It started with dreams. At first, it was just isolated images that didn't mean much. And then it was memories—things from her youth that she didn't want to remember.

Bella dreamt-remembered how, one summer, she started going down to First Beach every morning. It was early June. Too cold, really to go swimming, particularly along that stretch of coast, which had never been particularly inviting. But Bella liked the quiet. And she liked the fact that no one else was there. She liked the forbidding aspect of the sea, spread out, long and grey in the early morning light. She liked the desolate nature of the sand. The pounding of the waves, so relentless, so fucking inconsiderate of anything but itself, unceasing wave after unceasing wave. She liked to stand in the shallows, the foam lapping at her feet, the water frigid like ice until she grew used to the temperature, and then it was almost warm, the inexorable push and pull of the wavelets like little fingers against her calves, racing higher and higher up her thighs. She'd just stand there, her eyes closed, feeling.

The first time she drove out there, she didn't have a good reason. Her father had left early for his shift and she'd puttered around the house, unable to sleep and not wanting to face the day ahead. This was well before everything fell apart, before everyone started calling her a "slut" under their breaths. But she wasn't popular. Alice was really her only friend. Neither of them exactly fit in with the small-town values of that small-town. And sometimes—sometimes Bella wished that she didn't have to go to school.

So Bella had gotten in her truck and had just driven. She didn't know where she was going to go, but she'd ended up at First Beach. And after standing on the sand, staring at the water for a while, she'd rolled up her jeans and waded in.

Before her jeans could become completely soaked, Bella decided to just take them off. She tossed the denim on a rock, the same rock where she'd already left her socks and sneakers, and then, throwing caution to the wind, she pulled off her sweatshirt and her t-shirt, so that she was just in her panties and bra.

She waded back out into the water, her teeth chattering. Bella rubbed her arms, trying to get warm, but she didn't turn back. She had always liked the cold. In fact, she had fucking hated living in Arizona with her mother and the blistering heat. She was much happier in Forks. Perverse though it was, she liked the gloom. She liked the way that the sun was always clouded over. She liked the way that the trees always blocked out the sky. It fit her mood. Made her feel ok. Like she didn't have to keep trying.

The fact that everyone else was always complaining about the weather gave Bella a secret sense of satisfaction. Like Mother Nature herself had made this gift just for Bella, and Bella wasn't sharing.

Venturing out into the water a little further, Bella tried to work up the courage to dive in. She was afraid. She wasn't a strong swimmer and she didn't like how dark and murky the water was, circling around her legs.

The first lap of water against the bottom of her panties was so painfully cold that Bella cried out. But then, clamping her mouth shut, and watched the water warily, studying the blue-black depths. And as her body adjusted to the temperature, Bella's mouth fell open again. Her breath came faster, not because she was cold, but because she was warm, the water lapping at her core sending ripples of heat through her frame.

Bella wondered what it would feel like to have those tongues of water lapping over every inch of her. She wondered what would happen if she let the tide just carry her out.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

The harsh words broke Bella out of her daze. Spinning around, she found herself staring at Edward.

He was on the beach, clearly in the midst of a run, his t-shirt clinging to his chest with sweat. And he was pissed.

"I said, what the fuck are you doing here?" he asked again.

Trying to cover her chest, Bella glared back at him. "You don't own the fucking beach, Masen."

"Well I run by here every fucking morning, and I've never seen you here before."

"It's not my fault that you're blind," Bella snapped, lying by omission. _So what if this was her first morning there?_

"This is my beach," Edward told her. "Mine."

"Actually, no, it's not," Bella reminded him, trudging back to the shore so that she could pull on her clothes and at least try to recover some of her dignity.

And that was where Bella's memory and her dream parted places. In reality, she and Edward had continued bickering. In her dream, Edward grabbed her arm as she passed him, and swung her around to face him.

"What are you doing?" she asked, trying to push him off of her with her other arm, but he grabbed that one too.

"It's my beach," Edward said again, as if repetition alone could make it true. "And if you want to come here, you have to pay the toll." He pulled Bella towards him.

"Fuck you," she replied, trying to squirm out of his arms, but somehow he was everywhere. Tugging at her arms, pulling down the straps of her bra. And she was on the sand. She could feel the scrape of the sand against her back and it hurt. She cried out and Edward's tongue was in her mouth. She was going to bite him, but then his fingers were tweaking her nipples and she was crying out again, this time in pleasure and pain, and his fingers were inside her panties, slipping between her folds.

Bella woke up a mess of want and desire. And even though she knew it was fucked up, she thought about how different it could have been, that first morning on the beach, as her own fingers pushed into her core.

So yes, Bella was thinking about Edward quite a lot. He'd crept into her subconscious and was fucking with her head, with her memories, and she hated it—hated the fact that her own mind was betraying her, and hated that she was deriving some pleasure from it.

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Bella stared down at her students, convinced that nearly every one of them was a hypocrite and a liar.

She had taught this particular lesson before. The students had been assigned a court case involving the murder of a prostitute. Such a controversial subject should've provided fodder for a lively and engaging subject. But for some reason, her students just weren't having it.

Maybe Bella had just taught this particular lesson plan one time too many. Because watching the apathy of her students on full display, watching them sit there, without the spark of a single thought apparently occupying their brains, was really pissing her off.

It didn't help that Bella was working so many hours. Or that Tanya was harassing her for details about her progress with Edward. Or that she still hadn't made any headway with her dissertation, Dr. Volturri having cancelled their last meeting.

"What about the fact that the murderer was forced to pay reparations to the girl's _mother_?" Bella asked. "What about the fact that the girl's own mother was pimping her out?"

And nothing. They just kept sitting there. James, he of the increasingly creepy stare, stared at her with his droopy eyes.

She tried again. "What if I tell you that some people think that this case is fake? Or that it's based on a model? A hypothetical case written up to train lawyers in courtroom procedure?"

 _Fake news_ , she expected someone to say.

Nothing. Not one flicker of animation.

Bella had asked the exact same questions in the exact same way several times now, and the resulting conversations had been enthusiastic and heated.

Usually, when confronted by such obvious disinterest on the part of her students, Bella would ask them why they were so uncomfortable to speak up. _Was it the material or the question or just something in the water?_

She waited.

Silence.

 _Fine. Fuck them._

"Alright. So we're going to have a debate. What do you think about decriminalizing prostitution?"

Bella expected a general collapse. She was sure that her students would be so shocked by the subject matter that they'd all wilt in their chairs, catatonic and impassive, forcing her to announce the she was letting them go early. (And afterwards, she would curse them, one and all.)

So she was more than a little shocked by the intensity of their reaction.

Almost everyone had an opinion—not James, but almost everyone else—and they were very passionate about their opinions, too.

But to Bella's additional surprise, nearly all of them were against decriminalization. Nearly all of them—and mostly guys, too, because her classes were almost always predominately male—nearly all of them said that prostitution shouldn't be decriminalized.

And it annoyed the fuck out of her. Because who the fuck did they think that they were fooling?

In her experience, people were hypocrites. They might condemn prostitution, but then they'd turn around and patronize whore-houses, or else they would go around covering for the family members who did the patronizing.

People pretended that they were so damn perfect, but they were just as filthy as the prostitutes that they liked to kick in the teeth.

Prostitutes, like Bella's mother.

Oh, Bella had to give it to the fine upstanding (hypocritical) students in her class, they made some good points. A few of them argued that decriminalization would make it that much easier for criminals to traffic in minors and slaves. But no one could back up that argument with actual statistics on analogous efforts to decriminalize other so-called vices, like drugs or guns.

And the assumption that a prostitute was always a victim just rankled Bella. It fucking rankled.

"What about the temple prostitute?" Bella asked. "You all read the _Epic of Gilgamesh_. Did it seem like the temple prostitute was being forced to seduce Enkidu? Did she seem unhappy?"

Her students (awkwardly) conceded that the temple prostitute seemed content. But it was clearly asking too much of them to ask them to contemplate something so far outside their realm of experience. Prostitution as a sacred rite simply strained credulity.

Some of them even cited religion as a reason for outlawing prostitution.

"Haven't you seen _Firefly_?" Bella asked, referencing the old sci-fi series and taking a chance that at least a few of them were familiar with it. "Prostitution's going to be decriminalized in the future."

There were only two women in the class, one of whom was on Bella's side (because, yes, Bella had a side, as much as she tried to hide it) but the other one had chosen to stay silent until now. "First of all," the otherwise silent young woman started, "that show's _fiction_. Two, they also have slaves in _Firefly_. I don't think that makes their decision to decriminalize prostitution look all that good."

Bella narrowed her eyes at the student in question, because dammit, she'd made a good point. (And because she'd had the temerity to mock the believability of _Firefly._ )

Recovering herself, Bella glanced around the classroom, and couldn't help feeling a wave of anger. Her students weren't that much older than Edward had been when he'd enjoyed her mother's services.

 _Who the fuck do they think they are?_ Bella wondered. _Getting so sanctimonious?_ Did they really expect her to think that they were so fucking high and mighty?

 _They're just trying to look good_ , Bella decided. _Especially the guys._ They were afraid that she'd hold it against them if they favored decriminalization.

Showed what the fuck they knew.

Not that Bella was going to let them know that, of course. She did her best to act the part of the objective historian, not really caring one way or another.

Even if she secretly thought that they were a bunch of no good hypocrites.

 _At least Edward doesn't pretend_ , she thought. At least he didn't act all high and mighty.

Besides, she didn't blame him. (Or at least, she _told_ herself that she didn't blame him.) Bella knew damn well what had happened. What guy, a few weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday, faced with that kind of temptation, surrounded by friends cheering him on, wouldn't accept the offer?

If anyone was to blame, it was her mother.

And Bella didn't blame her either.

No, that wasn't true. Bella was angry for the way that Renee went about her work. She was mad at her mother for coming to Forks. For running through one man after another, and then going after mere teenagers. And naturally Bella was mad at her mother for everything that she'd been forced to see, growing up in that sort of environment.

But Bella actually favored the decriminalization of prostitution.

In her opinion, prostitution was just like another job, not all that different from being a masseuse.

Bella knew that it was a highly controversial subject. But there were feminists who agreed with her.

There were several more feminists who would've disagreed with her, and quite a few who would've argued that Bella had a fucked up view of the topic thanks to her upbringing.

Yet Bella stuck to her guns.

And since, in Bella's opinion, it was wrong to look down on a prostitute, it was also wrong to look down on a prostitute's clients.

Or so Bella kept reminding herself.

Bella thought that she did a fairly good job of keeping her temper reined as the debate wrapped up. She was pleased, after all, that her students had finally begun to participate. So she was smiling as they filed out of the classroom.

That was, until James paused in front of her desk.

As per usual, he wanted to know if he could come to her office hours.

She reminded him that he didn't have to make an appointment to come to her office hours.

He asked if she was going to be in her office that afternoon.

Bella sighed and told him that she didn't have anything scheduled but she would be in her office for an hour that afternoon if he wanted to drop in.

Three hours later, Bella checked her watch again. She was grateful that James hadn't shown, but it was also a little annoying, because _Why the fuck bother to ask her if he wasn't going to bother coming?_ She'd been on edge all afternoon, waiting for him to show. Which didn't make any sense, because why would a student make her nervous?

Gathering her things together, Bella started down the stairs, hurrying because she was meeting Edward for coffee. Upon reaching the first floor, however, Bella froze. Quickly ducking back into the stairwell, Bella just escaped being seen by James, who was stepping onto the elevator.

She had no proof that he was there to see her, but it still annoyed her.

It was, in fact, just about the last straw for Bella as far as her students were concerned that day.

 _Fuck every one of them._

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"Frustrated desires and perverted lusts," Edward insisted, his annoyance obvious.

Bella tried to restrain herself. She knew that she was in a shitty mood, and she didn't want to take it out on him. She didn't like letting her emotions get the better of her, even if it meant laying into a jerk.

As for Edward, he'd had a bad day himself. Admin was pulling more shit. And Bella was just being so damn stubborn. Why did she have to start a fight? He wasn't trying to be a dick, but he felt like she was purposely baiting him. (Of course, Edward's irritation might have also had a little something to do with a certain ban on masturbation.)

"You so sure?" Bella asked in a snippy tone.

"Nothing but passion diverted from its natural course."

"Its natural course?" Bella scoffed.

Edward adopted a pompous tone. "The natural course of passion is to be fulfilled."

"You don't think it was? I mean, you don't think it's being fulfilled?"

"How could it be?"

Bella's eyes shifted to the wall behind Edward, her face taking on a curious expression. "'All my senses abandoned I remained, lost in oblivion.'" She looked back at Edward. "Sounds like an orgasm to me."

Edward laughed dryly, unconvinced. "A delirium-induced orgasm? The ravings of a starved virgin, locked alone in a cold, damp cell for weeks, sick with hunger and lack of sleep and fantasizing about a naked God bleeding on a cross. Do you fantasize about Jesus too?"

"Don't be disgusting," Bella grimaced.

"My apologies. Not naked. The loincloth is always arranged just so."

Bella huffed. "At least I try to take your arguments seriously. You don't even give me a chance."

"It's impossible to take you seriously when you talk like this."

"You can't even consider the possibility?"

"It's just sublimation. Frustrated desires funneled into socially acceptable channels."

"But why would anyone bother? If you're right, why not just have sex and enjoy it?"

"Self-righteous pricks, all of your monks and nuns. They couldn't get the right girl—or guy—to say 'yes' so they had to take it out on everyone else, telling them that they couldn't have sex at all. Sexless hysterics."

To the objective observer, Edward's words were a bit too much on the nose. But Bella and Edward were anything but objective.

Bella felt the sting of his implication, but she ignored it. It wasn't her fault that Edward couldn't have sex or masturbate; he could concede defeat, after all. "They weren't _sexless hysterics_. Sex didn't carry the same taboo for the Romans as it does for us. The Christians invented all of that. The Jews certainly weren't that bad, and the Romans thought that you could even go to a temple and have sex with a god if wanted to."

Edward snorted.

"It's true," Bella argued.

"Someone was probably just using the temple to hook up and then blamed it on some god when they got caught."

"Well, that's also true," Bella conceded, because there were in fact stories about priests who got carried away with the wives of certain officials. "But that's proof, too, isn't it? If someone would spread a story like that, about having sex with a god, then at least some people must have thought that it was possible. There're spells for invoking the gods during sex."

"Sex magic?"

"Why not? You've heard of tantrism, I'm sure."

Edward rolled his eyes. "Of course I've heard of it. It's _sex_. S-E-X. With a person. There's no way around it. It's carnal desire. Make it sound like religion as much as you like, but it's still got nothing to do with God, and everything to do with lust, pure and simple."

"How would you know?"

Edward simply laughed again.

"Have you tried?" Bella asked, starting to get really pissed. Why couldn't he just take her seriously for once?

She was _supposed_ to lose this contest of theirs, but she wanted it to be on her own terms.

The truth was, she _wanted_ to win.

She _had_ to lose, but she wanted it to be because she'd thrown it.

"Tried what?" Edward asked.

"Tantric sex?"

Edward shook his head, his expression showing how ludicrous he thought she was being.

"Why not?" Bella wanted to know.

"What's the point?"

"To see—whatever—whatever there is to see."

Edward shook his head. "A prolonged orgasm isn't the face of God."

"How do you know?"

"Tantric sex takes an awful lot of work. Cramping's involved."

"You're a coward."

" _I_ 'm a coward? _I_ 'm not the one afraid of sex."

"Why wouldn't you at least try unless you were afraid of what might happen?"

"I don't like any woman enough to have sex with her for that long. And all of this is hurting your case. If you have to have sex to see God then virginity's a waste of time. All of these mystics you keep talking about—with their orgiastic visions of God—they're going about it the wrong way. If they want an orgasm, they should just have sex."

"Unless sex is a consolation prize."

Edward just stared at her for a minute. _Why is she pissing me off so much?_ he wondered. Why was this line of argument just pushing all of his buttons? It didn't make any sense—but something about it was just irking him.

Determined not to lose his temper, he settled back in his chair. "Explain please." Edward was prepared to listen.

"The Arabs built empty thrones," Bella said after a beat.

Edward blinked.

Her eyes flickered down to his chair. "Just like your chair, only huge, and in their temples. Massive thrones for their gods. They didn't build statues of their gods, though. Arabs and Jews alike didn't think that gods had any form—at least not forms in the same way as the Greek and the Roman gods."

She stopped, afraid that she wasn't making any sense. She studied Edward's face for a moment, and whatever she saw there must have convinced her to continue, because she went on. "When the Arabs gave their gods a physical form, they'd do it by erecting little blocks of stone." Glancing down at the table, Bella stood a sugar packet on end, the packet slouching like a dolmen. "Just like that," Bella explained.

"Otherwise, the gods were formless. Unknown. Christian scholars sometimes argue that it's just an allegory, that bit about God having a face, but Christians have always tended to imagine the divine in human terms, like the Greco-Romans. As if God has hands and arms."

Bella smoothed her hands against the surface of the table as if to emphasize how hard it was. How touchable.

"In the Bible," she said, "in the _Song of Songs_ , the bride says 'My lover has the scent of myrrh as he lies upon my breasts.' _That's_ an allegory. The bride is all of us and she's talking about God. Or else she's God and her husband is all of us. The point is that it's romantic. And it's physical. The link between man and the divine a tangible thing.

"But sometimes I wonder if the bride's wrong. What if God's really just an empty throne? Immaterial. Untouchable. A void."

Bella flipped her hands over and stared at her empty palms. "What if we're wasting our time thinking that we can touch God? Because there's nothing to touch. And we're wasting our time with all of this—" and Bella rapped the knuckles of both hands against the table.

She shook her head. "Most everyone's waiting until they're dead, because that's when you'll know the truth, right? You'll see God—or not—and you'll know. But Plotinus said that you didn't have to wait. That you could see God now, today."

Bella looked back at Edward, her face deadly earnest. "You can't just snap your fingers and see God, though. God has to show you the way. And that's why we have beauty. Not just beautiful people but beautiful things, too. From there, you learn to recognize God. That's what Plato said, and Plotinus was a Platonist. He thought that it was a process, learning how to reach the divine. You start small, with beauty in the here and now, and eventually you get to the real thing, the real beauty, God. But if you settle for what you can touch, you'll never get there."

Bella shook her head. "And if you settle for the imitation, you might as well be fucking in the mud for all the good it does you."

Edward didn't say anything at first, just sitting there watching Bella and thinking.

"It's a pretty story," he said at last. His words seemed kind, but his voice was dead. "It _would_ be a pretty story. Except that there's no such thing as God. We're _all_ of us fucking in the mud. All your little virgins in their convents. All the soccer moms intent on finding some young stud to practice tantric sex on. Everyone at Breaking Dawn. We're fucking in the mud because it's all we have. As much as you try to dress it up and call it pretty names—call it God—it's nothing but fucking in the mud until we die and then there's just nothing. So you might as well enjoy it while you can. Because otherwise you're just lying to yourself. And Isabella, that's _cowardly_. That's a _coward's_ way out. Admit who you are. Because you're no better than the rest of us. You're a pig, swimming down here in the filth just like everyone else."

Bella stared back at Edward, not knowing what to say.

As vulgar as his words had been, he seemed perfectly calm. Perfectly at peace. And completely full of self-loathing.

And she was trembling, because how dare he say such things to her.

And if he would say _this_ to her, what did that mean for how he saw himself?

 **AN:**

"'All my senses abandoned I remained, lost in oblivion.'" –John of the Cross's _Dark Night of the Soul_. Translation from poetseers dot org. This poem is from the 16th century and hence is far later than most of the material being treated here. However, it is such a well-known and perfect expression of the concept discussed in this chapter that I couldn't resist using it.

The court case involving the dead prostitute can be found in _BGU_ 4.1024 which can be found in Jane Rowlandson's _Women and Society in Greek and Roman Egypt: A Sourcebook_ , page 271. Dominic Montserrat suggests that this case is merely allegorical, with the prostitute representing love (Montserrat, _Sex and Society in Graeco-Roman Egypt_ 134-35).

The seminal text on attitudes towards sex in the Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds at the advent of Christianity is Peter Brown's _The Body and Society._

We are a few chapters away from the revelation of the full details about Port Angeles and Bella's deal with Tanya. If you are interested, here are my reasons for being so miserly and doling out this information piecemeal.

First, of course, it was meant to create suspense. I hoped that it would encourage readers to keep reading out of a longing to know the truth. It was also meant to give the reader an opportunity to exercise his/her imagination/wits as he/she comes up possible scenarios.

Second, my treatment of the past is in keeping with my notion of _past as trauma_. It's a truism that the past only matters in the present. We only care about anything that's ever happened in the past because of its connection to what we're experiencing in the present. By providing my characters' backstory upfront, I might succeed in keeping the reader's patience from being tested as he/she waits for me to dole the information out, but I'd be casting shadow puppets on a screen with no setting, no context. The events I'd show would have been picked based on the fact that they would end being important in the future, in the story that I actually want to tell, after Bella and Edward meet up again. By removing these events from the contexts in which they would eventually be remembered, I'd be stripping away the meaning that they would be meant to carry in the future. If I thought that the past mattered in and of itself, I'd write a young adult novel fleshed out with all of the necessary extraneous details. I'd try to make the reader care about the significance of these events in the characters' lives as these events first happened. And the events that transpired after Bella and Edward became adults would be a sequel. As written, _Corrupting Influence_ reveals the past only when this past becomes so incredibly relevant in the present that the characters have no choice but to confront it, as the psychoses that have developed as a result of the past (the past that the characters have been ignoring) force the past into the present.

Third, my strategy reflects an effort to encourage the reader to identify with my characters. By hiding details from the reader, I'm placing the reader in the position of the characters who have been hiding things from themselves. The reader's ignorance is akin to that of the characters. And by not telling the reader what Bella and Tanya have planned, I hoped that it would encourage the reader to identify with Edward, who senses that there's a reason to be suspicious of Bella's intentions, but lacks the proof to know that he's right. (I don't think this wish was fulfilled, but oh well.) Edward's ignorance with regard to Bella's intentions is, to some extent, mirrored by Bella's own trepidation with regard to proceeding as planned. She has tried to back out several times, and is clearly unwilling to face up to the reality of this deal. She knows what she's supposed to be doing, but she wishes that she didn't have this knowledge. The reader's ignorance about the details of this plan reflects Bella's own unwillingness to admit what she's doing.

Of course, I'm very sympathetic to readers who want the backstory, and some readers have taken me up on my offer in the AN of the first chapter to tell readers about the backstory via PM. But even though I often skip ahead to the end of a story that I'm reading (or to the end of an extremely suspenseful section), I don't think that my reading habits necessarily constitute a commentary on the adequacy of a novel's structure. It doesn't make sense to hide a detail that should have been obvious to the characters prior to its revelation. But if there's a good reason that the characters didn't know about it (because they're repressing the detail or weren't told something), then the suppression of a detail is, in my opinion, a valid and time-honored means of enhancing the suspense and, thereby, the entertainment value of a narrative.

Naturally, it's really for you to decide if _Corrupting Influence_ would have been better were it told in a more linear fashion.

 **Rec: Diamond in the rough:** _ **Baby Whisperer**_ **by compass54** She manipulated me so easily. Twenty-one, beautiful and curious is a perilous mix. Olderward. Jazz music. He's a successful classical pianist who doesn't believe in marriage. She's still in college. They meet at his manager's wedding and he doesn't stand a chance. Host's Choice and Judge's Choice in the May to December Romance Contest. Rated: Fiction M - English - Romance/Family - Chapters: 10 - Words: 71,780 - Reviews: 897 - Favs: 946 - Follows: 749 - Updated: Nov 4, 2015 - Published: Feb 13, 2015 - Status: Complete - id: 11041772


	15. Chapter 15

**Warning: This story is rated M for a reason. And the below Davidson quote was chosen for a reason.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

"Since the nineteenth century, of course, the clitoris (a Greek word) and the female orgasm have been rediscovered or re-publicized, but sodomy, in contrast with vaginal intercourse, is still presented as one-sided pleasure intrinsically sadistic and humiliating…But in classical Athens the penetrated were not seen as the inert objects of someone else's gratification…The rear-entry position was not bestial or humiliating but lewd." – James Davidson _Courtesans and Fishcakes_

" _What if I can never mention examples so shameful, so base, that something worse is not left out?_ " Juvenal, translator unknown

Chapter 15

"So are you going to tell me what you're doing with my brother?" Alice asked.

Bella took another bite of her sandwich, chewing it carefully before she replied. "What do you mean?"

"Please. I know that the two of you are seeing each other." Alice smiled wickedly.

The two were enjoying a quick lunch at the little café down the street from the boutique where Alice worked.

They had enjoyed a few sporadic luncheons over the past few weeks. To an outside observer, it would've been clear that they were still feeling their way back into friendship, trying to see if there was anything worth salvaging.

Thus far, they had stuck to easy topics, avoiding touchy subjects.

Touchy subjects like Alice's stepbrother, Edward.

"We're not seeing each other," Bella clarified, feeling wary.

"I don't mean it like that," Alice tried to backtrack. "I don't mean that you shouldn't see him."

"What do you mean then?" Bella asked. It wasn't that Alice didn't have a right to be interested in her stepbrother's activities. But Bella wasn't interested in answering questions.

Alice dabbed her lips with a napkin, then fiddled with the straw in her lemonade, obviously trying to find the right words.

"Just say it," Bella told her.

Alice sighed. "I love Edward. You know that I do."

Bella felt a pang of anxiety, afraid that Alice was going to warn her to stay away. Bella didn't want to have to defend her relationship with Edward.

So Alice's next words took Bella by surprise.

"You know how hard it was for Edward when he first came to live with us," Alice said. "How that bitch who gave birth to him just fucked him up."

Bella cut Alice off. "I don't know anything." Which was a lie. The truth was, Bella didn't _want_ to know. "It's not really any of my business, is it?"

"Is it?" Alice asked. "Is it your business?"

"Why would it be?"

"Remember how Edward never took his t-shirt off when we'd go swimming?"

Bella remembered alright. Whenever the Cullens would invite Bella to go with them to First Beach or to the pool in Port Angeles, Edward would refuse to take off his t-shirt.

And it was so obvious. So clear that he was uncomfortable.

But Bella was hardly one to flaunt skin. She wore a t-shirt over her bathing suit every single time she went swimming. The morning Edward found her at First Beach wading in just her bra and panties was a rare exception; she thought she was alone.

Bella didn't want people looking at her. Didn't want people seeing her.

So who was she to mock Edward for wanting to avoid people's stares?

Bella had no interest in discussing the subject with Alice. "Why does it matter?" Bella asked. "Why are you bringing this up?"

"I'm worried."

Bella squinted at Alice. "We're not swimming."

"I'm worried someone's going to get hurt."

"That—that I'm going to hurt _Edward_?" Bella sputtered, afraid that Alice had figured everything out.

"That he's going to hurt you."

It took Bella a moment to reply. "How could he hurt me?"

"I love him. I do. Despite everything. But he's fucked up. He— I don't think he's—" Alice paused. "I don't think he's good—to women. He goes right through them. Don't you remember all of the girls back in Forks?"

"That was high school. And I don't think they were exactly complaining." Bella snorted, remembering how Lauren Mallory and the rest of her little clique would pant after Edward. _And to think that it was Bella who got called a_ whore _!_

"Just promise me you'll be careful," Alice requested.

"There's nothing to be careful about. Nothing's going on."

Alice's eyes narrowed. "What about your little 'dates?'"

"We have coffee. In a coffeehouse. Surrounded by other coffee drinkers. There's nothing salacious going on."

"My brother doesn't do 'coffee dates.'"

"I don't know what to tell you then. He does now."

"So if I asked him to meet me for coffee, he'd agree?" Alice challenged.

"Ask him and find out," Bella said, bluffing, because she wasn't at all certain that Edward would accept.

"And what do you discuss on your 'coffee dates' with my brother?"

"My corruption." Bella had heard that it was best to stick as close to the truth as possible.

Alice burst out laughing. "Your corruption? I can just see Edward, rubbing his hands together and plotting how to corrupt a sweet young thing."

"I'm not that sweet. Or young," Bella reminded Alice.

"And what's in it for you?"

"Besides the joy of being corrupted?"

"Corruption in a coffeehouse. It sounds like the title of one of those cozy mysteries mom likes to read. Yeah, what do you get out of it?"

"I've got a plan of my own."

"What? For world domination?"

"Nothing so grand," Bella replied, avoiding the question.

Alice growled. "Enough with the suspense. Now tell me! What are your intentions with my brother?"

"I'm going to destroy him," Bella joked, or at least she meant to joke. But she couldn't help her somber tone.

Overlooking Bella's slip, Alice let out another peal of laughter. "Does Edward know about this plan of yours?"

"He would be a fool not to," Bella replied.

"My my, you _have_ changed."

Staring down at her drink, Bella shrugged. "I told you, I'm not that sweet."

"Damn," Alice cursed. "Look how late it is."

Glancing up, Bella noticed that the lunchtime rush was over in the café. There were only a couple of other patrons left.

"I was supposed to be back at work fifteen minutes ago," Alice said, standing quickly and grabbing her tray.

Watching Alice turn, Bella realized what was going to happen a split-second before it did, too late to warn Alice before she collided with a guy holding a mop.

"What the—" Alice broke off as her tray slipped out of her hands, the silverware clattering to the floor and her soup bowl breaking in half.

"Jesus," mop-guy said. "Are you alright?"

"Sorry," Alice quickly apologized, bending down to begin picking up the pieces of broken ceramic.

"Let me get that," mop-guy told her, leaning the mop up against the wall and bending down to help her.

"No, I've almost got it all," Alice told him.

The truth was, Alice was more than a little mortified over the spectacle she was making.

"You're going to hurt yourself," mop-guy cautioned.

"I'm not going to hurt myself," Alice replied, a little more testily than necessary, but she was agitated with herself for causing the accident, and she just wanted to get it cleaned up so that she could get out of that café and (obviously) never come back. And mop-guy was standing between her and the realization of the fulfillment of that newfound and profoundly heartfelt dream.

"It's everywhere," mop-guy pointed out.

There was, indeed, soup everywhere. Alice's pitiful effort to clean it up with a few napkins was failing dismally.

Mop-guy continued. "Just let me mop it up. You don't want to get it all over yourself."

But Alice was determined. "I'm not going to get it all over myself."

Mop-guy sounded dubious. "Well, that looks like a pretty fancy dress. I wouldn't want you to stain it."

For some reason, something about mop-guy's words rubbed Alice the wrong way. "So what if I stain it?" Alice decided that she didn't like his patronizing tone. Like he thought that she was too high and mighty to clean up after herself.

Mop-guy was obviously trying to sound conciliatory. "I don't think tomato soup will wash out, that's all."

That just agitated Alice even more. "I know what will and won't wash out of silk. And you don't just wash silk."

"Look ma'am—"

" _Ma'am_?!" Because who the hell was mop-guy to be calling her ma'am? Like she was a hundred-and-two.

Bella tried to cut in. "Alice, I think—"

But Alice wasn't listening. "If you hadn't come up behind me with that mop—"

"You walked into me," mop-guy pointed out, fairly enough.

"Ha!"

Bella began pulling on Alice's arm. "Alice, I think that we should go."

"I'll go alright," Alice announced, rising up from her crouch. "I'll go and I'll never come back." Her determination to flee for her own peace of mind was now recast as a threat. Surely, her decision to boycott this establishment would be fair recompense for everything she'd suffered.

"Good," mop-guy said, clearly tired of trying to placate a customer who was (at least for the moment) plainly crazy.

"Who are you to talk to me like that?" Alice wanted to know. "I'm a customer. And what are you? A mop-guy!"

"Mop-guy?!" Mop-guy didn't like this appellation.

"Let me talk to the owner."

Bella tried to interrupt again. "Alice—"

"I want to talk to the owner!" Alice repeated.

Mop-guy crossed his arms. "I _am_ the owner."

"You?!" Alice glared at mop-guy, as if the fact that mop-guy would have the temerity to own a café was a personal affront to her.

Whirling around, Alice stormed out of the café without another word, leaving Bella behind.

Glancing at mop-guy, Bella settled for a simple "sorry," and ran after Alice.

"Did you hear him?" Alice demanded once Bella caught up with her as she charged down the sidewalk back towards her boutique.

"I heard him," Bella replied cautiously.

"He called me ma'am!" Alice reminded her.

"I think that he was just trying to be polite."

"How old do I look to you?"

Sympathetic though Bella was to Alice's plight—she would've been horrified to cause such a scene—she also thought that Alice was being a trifle melodramatic. "Isn't that whole thing a little played out? So what if someone calls you ma'am?"

"I'm almost thirty."

"I know. I'm almost thirty too."

"I was supposed to have my _own_ line established by now. And I'm still just a manager in a _fucking_ boutique."

"I'm still in grad school," Bella pointed out.

"This isn't about you!" Alice snapped.

"Right. Sorry."

Alice stopped suddenly and faced Bella. "We can never go back to that café again!"

"Okay," Bella quickly agreed.

" _Okay_?! Just like that? They had the best fucking Danishes!"

"They did?"

"I _love_ their fucking Danishes!" Alice cried, turning and setting off again. "I loved everything on the menu. But they made the best Danishes that I've ever had."

"I've never had breakfast there."

Alice stopped again and looked at Bella. "I'm _sorry_! I should have gotten you a Danish. Why didn't I get you a Danish?"

"It's okay," Bella tried to reassure Alice.

"It's not okay! You never got to have one of their Danishes and now you'll never get to have one because we can never go back there!"

"I'll just go back and apologize. I'll even get you a Danish."

Alice gaped at her. "What? No! You can't do that! What if they spit in it?"

"I'm sure that they won't do that," Bella lied.

"I can't believe that I just did that." Alice covered her face with her hands.

"It's okay," Bella said again.

"I was a crazy person."

"They probably get a lot of crazy people," Bella said, because the world was full of crazy people, so why shouldn't a café get a lot of them?

"Do you think?" Alice looked up at Bella pleadingly.

"Sure. They'll forget all about this."

"They will? Do you really think so?"

"Sure."

"Like we can go in there again, maybe in a month, and they will have forgotten everything?" Alice asked hopefully.

"Oh no."

"But you just said that they would forget."

"I was lying," Bella confessed.

Alice let out a wail. "I can't believe what I've done. Don't ever let me do something like that again."

"I couldn't exactly stop you this time," Bella observed.

"Try harder! Hit me over the head! Tell them that I have a condition! Do whatever you have to do!"

"I'll try."

"Promise?"

"I promise," Bella promised.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"He was kind of cute, though, wasn't he?" Alice asked mournfully.

"Mop-guy?"

Alice nodded.

"Kind of had a surfer bum thing going," Bella said, recalling the foppish blonde hair and the black hemp necklace and the tan (which was entirely out of place in Seattle).

"And I _like_ surfer bums," Alice lamented.

"I know."

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Edward wasn't sure what to do.

The last time he saw Bella, it didn't exactly go well.

He couldn't believe the way that he'd spoken to her. His words that day kept repeating on a loop inside of his head: _"You're no better than the rest of us. You're a pig, swimming down here in the filth just like everyone else."_

And then he'd just walked out.

Edward had been talking about himself that day, of course. _Edward_ was the pig, not Bella.

But the way she'd been carrying on, going on and on, like she had these ideals, like people were actually worthwhile, like anything that they might do actually mattered—

It just grated. Because what was Edward? What was he worth?

Nothing.

And ever since that day in the coffeehouse, Edward had been struggling with his conscience.

He had even considered calling off the contest. Of telling Bella it was over.

Bella was fucked up—he had no illusions about that. But so what? Didn't she have a right to her delusions? Who was Edward to tell her how to live her life?

And what did Edward really have to offer her?

After all, he'd been keeping the truth from her. Bella didn't know about his addiction. For all she knew, his fondness for sex was just a passing predilection. She had no idea how serious the situation was.

Bella deserved to know the truth.

But if she knew the truth, she'd run for the hills.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

"What do you talk about?" Tanya asked.

Bella _hated_ these phone calls. _Hated_ the way that Tanya would question her.

"Books," Bella replied as tersely as possible, wishing that she'd ignored Tanya's voicemail. Because Bella was feeling worse and worse about this plan.

And it wasn't just because of what it would end up costing Bella to go through with it—no, it was the growing realization that Bella actually cared that she would probably end up hurting other people. in the process

But every time that Bella thought about backing out, she remembered what she would be giving up if she did so.

"Books?" Tanya repeated with a tone of dismay.

"Yeah."

"Hmph. Doesn't sound to me like you're making much progress."

"Well at least he's talking to me," Bella replied in a not too subtle dig.

"You know that this isn't how it's supposed to work," Tanya snapped.

"That's not my fault is it?"

"Just make sure you don't forget my part," Tanya warned.

Bella scoffed. "As if I could."

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

"What?" Bella asked at last, unable to bear the awkwardness any longer.

Edward had been waiting for her at the coffeehouse, with her Bloody Englishman and scone already sitting on the table.

But he'd overlooked grabbing a knife, which was a shame, because they could've used it to cut the tension.

"I know that you were mad at me last time," Bella said. "But aren't you blowing it out of proportion?"

"Do you really believe in God?" Edward asked, not bothering to reply to her question.

"I'm an agnostic."

And her answer just aggravated Edward all the more, because she should at least have the guts to pick a side. "How can you throw your life away on something when you don't know if it's right?" Edward asked.

"I'm throwing my life away?"

"You don't have sex," Edward explained, as if it was as simple as that. As if the decision to abstain from sex was solely a religious one. Meaning that Bella's reluctance was illogical. She wasn't sure if there was a God, so why was she abstaining?

"Not now, no."

Edward hadn't expected her to reply like that. "Wait. So you might have sex someday?"

Bella shook her head. "That isn't the point. That isn't the point of our—our contest—whatever this is."

"Of course it's the point. That's the _whole_ point of the contest."

"No, I'm just trying to prove to you that you might be wrong. That there might be a point to abstaining. And that a person who's already, already _corrupted_ , as you put it, isn't utterly lost, as you seem to think they are."

Edward shook his head. "You're a hypocrite. If you were really a virgin because you thought it had some magical, mystical meaning you'd believe in God. You wouldn't be waiting for _someday_ to have sex."

"So I automatically lose the debate because I'm _not_ a virgin sitting in a convent? Because I don't go to a church and pray?"

"Yes."

"That's crap."

Edward shrugged. "You're the one who brought God into this."

That was a lie (or, at least, a distortion) on Edward's part. He'd given Bella a copy of _Terese, The Philosopher_ , and Bella had already read enough of the book to know that God came into it quite a bit.

Which just pissed her off, because the book inverted all of the arguments that Bella had laid out so meticulously the last time she and Edward had met in the coffeehouse.

Oh, there was enlightenment, _Terese_ argued, but the only way to get to it was through sex.

And screw that (no pun intended), because Bella didn't know if there was such a thing as enlightenment, but if there was, then she had every reason to believe that she was right about how you got to it. Needless to say, it wasn't through vice.

Of course, Bella had yet to finish the book, and she had no intention of discussing it with Edward until she had thoroughly examined all of the author's theses and come up with damn good reasons why they were all wrong.

"But you're just avoiding the argument," Bella defended herself. "So what if there's no such thing as enlightenment? MRIs prove the existence of altered states—"

"I knew that altered states were going to come into this at some point," Edward said ominously.

"MRIs _prove_ that they exist," Bella persisted.

"That's not God."

"Does it matter? Altered states—enlightenment—it exists. Isn't that enough?"

Edward squinted at Bella. "But you're not really trying, are you? You don't pray. And I bet you don't meditate either. You're doing absolutely nothing to seek enlightenment. You just peddle that excuse to avoid—to avoid _trying_. At least I _am_ what I claim to be. Corrupt. And I'm fine with that. You're just waiting for Mr. Right. And you're doing absolutely nothing to find him, because you've got this pretty fairy tale to fall back on about _absence_ , or whatever. Which is bullshit."

"Because I'm a pig in the mud?" Bella asked, her tone a trifle harsher than she intended.

Edward hitched a shoulder. "It's nothing personal. We're all the same. It's life."

Shaking her head, Bella finished off her coffee and started picking at the crumbs of her scone, because she still found it hard to believe he really thought that way about himself. _How could anyone think that way about themselves?_

He was right one thing though. Bella wasn't trying.

She believed everything that she'd said last time in the coffeehouse—that enlightenment was possible and that maybe people could get to it. That maybe ascetic struggles weren't a waste of time.

But that wasn't the reason Bella didn't have sex.

She didn't have sex because—

Because she didn't have sex.

She was busy. She didn't want to invest the energy.

She didn't—

"What?" he asked.

But Bella just shook her head.

"Come on," he told her. "Just say it."

Edward had no idea what was going through Bella's mind, of course. In fact, he was all but convinced that she was holding her tongue not out of reluctance to admit that she was wrong, but out of a reluctance to hurt his feelings. He was sure that she was sitting there thinking that it was just him, that _Edward_ was the problem. That he was clearly broken. That he _could_ never and _would_ never see God—assuming there even was such a thing—or reach enlightenment, or whatever, because Edward simply wasn't good enough.

"I don't think you're as corrupt as you say," she said instead.

Edward was taken aback, but then he chuckled darkly. "I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but it's not worth it."

"You've never had sex with someone against their will," Bella confirmed, glancing up at him.

"You know I wouldn't," Edward snapped, because _goddammit._

"You've never been with someone who—legally—can't give consent?"

"Of course not."

"Well then you're not as corrupt as you think," she said, almost nonchalantly.

"So what? I'm fucking redeemed or something?"

Bella didn't reply, gazing at him with a sad little expression. Like she felt sorry for him.

And Edward didn't like it. Who the hell was she to pity him? Edward wanted to wipe that mournful look off of her face. Make her realize who she was really dealing with. "The Marquis de Sade was right about some things," he said.

Bella sensed a trap, but she wasn't going to fall for it that easily. "Such as?"

" _Justine_ ," Edward started. "You know the plot?"

Bella knew alright. "This woman, Justine, she goes out of her way to protect her virtue and goes through utter hell as a result."

"Exactly," Edward nodded. "Justine's sister gives into vice, and in the end, she's in a much better place than Justine. If Justine had been just a little more moderate, she could have avoided a lot of suffering."

Edward was being intentionally obtuse. The truth was, Edward despised the novel in question. There was no excuse for what Justine had been put through, because she didn't consent, not at all. And no one deserved to be treated like that.

But a part of him wanted Bella to think the worst of him. Wanted her to see him for what he truly was.

No, he wasn't a monster like the Marquis de Sade. But he wasn't a white knight.

As for Bella, she wasn't impressed. "You're telling me that _Justine_ is a lesson in moderation?"

Edward nodded again.

Bella glared back. "The Marquis de Sade wasn't an advocate for moderation. Are you kidding me? All that book proves is that libertines are more interested in someone like Justine, who tries to stop them from taking whatever they want. They weren't interested in Justine's sister because she didn't try to stop them. She let them do whatever they wanted."

"That's a bit of an oversimplification," Edward argued.

"An oversimplification? Like claiming _Justine_ 's an _allegory in moderation_?" Bella replied sarcastically.

"It's okay, I get why you don't like the sister."

"I don't _dis_ like the sister," Bella sniffed.

"Of course you do."

"I don't. She made her own decisions and I'm glad things worked out for her."

"She was a prostitute," Edward reminded Bella.

"So?"

"You have very personal reasons for disliking prostitution."

Bella actually smiled, because Edward was an idiot if he thought that going after Bella's mother was going to win him this argument. "For your information, I support the decriminalization of prostitution."

"Like hell you do." Edward wasn't buying it.

"I do. A job is a job is a job. If a person can be a masseuse, why not a prostitute?"

"I don't believe you." 

"You can believe what you want."

Edward shook his head. "You're telling me that your—that your _hang-ups_ —don't have anything to do with your mother?"

"So I'm not perfect," Bella replied, angrier now, because, yeah, Edward had hit a nerve. "Maybe I've got a personal stake in the matter. But don't tell me what I think. Regardless of how my mother made her money, I can think for myself. I can decide, rationally, that it doesn't make sense to legislate over something like that."

"Some feminist you are."

"Feminism just means that women are human and deserve rights as such. That's it. The end. We can argue about what that means, but a feminist should defend a person's choice about what to do with his or her body, no matter how stupid we may personally think that decision is."

"How can you say that?" Edward asked. "I know what it's like to be raised by someone who tells you that you aren't worth shit." Edward didn't want to bring up his past, he didn't want to talk about his own mother, but goddammit, Bella as being so fucking stupid. "Every day they tell you that you're a piece of trash. How's a person raised like that supposed to think for himself? You think that a person can just snap his fingers, and voila, free will?"

 _How dare he try to compare scars?_ "We're not robots," Bella argued. "We think for ourselves."

"You're fucking naïve."

"How can feminists expect people to respect our gender if we say that some people are brainwashed and can't think for themselves?"

"So you're really telling me that if a referendum came up tomorrow to decriminalize prostitution, you would vote in favor of it?" Edward asked.

"I would," Bella insisted. "You know who teaches Socrates that beauty isn't pretty faces or nice things? That it's virtue and the divine? A prostitute."

"Of course it's a prostitute. It's a fairy tale. I bet this whore of his is a Mary Sue."

 _He did_ not _just criticize Socrates!_ "What's the point then?" Bella asked. "What's the point of going around fucking and fucking and fucking?"

"There is no point. _That's_ the point. And that's why the Marquis de Sade was so fond of anal sex. The futility of it."

Bella blinked. "How is anal sex futile?"

"It's a waste. It's not like you can get someone pregnant when your dick is stuck in their ass." Edward was being intentionally vulgar. "And the one doing the sticking is the only one really getting any pleasure out of it. _That's_ a real libertine—someone who only cares about their own pleasure. So I suppose you're right about that. About a libertine only caring about himself."

"You've had anal sex?"

"Of course." Edward wasn't going to deny it.

"Of course," Bella rolled here eyes. "And I assume that you weren't the catcher."

"Of course not."

"Then what the fuck do you know about it?" Bella asked.

Edward smiled. "More than you, I'm sure."

"I know that a good part of the prostrate is stimulated when a guy's the recipient."

"I don't fuck guys," Edward was quick to clarify.

"So a woman can't enjoy it?"

"They can _pretend_." Edward had always gone out of his way to make it as enjoyable as possible for the women that he was with. Tanya had seemed especially appreciative. _But come on. No woman really enjoys it._

"So you _assume_ that the women you're with are just pretending to get some pleasure out it? Because it fits some fucked up nihilistic fantasy of yours." Bella crossed her arms. "How the fuck would you know? You should stop reading the Marquis de Sade."

Edward gaped at Bella. "Come on."

"No. You're the one trying to fill some nihilistic wet-dream."

"You're telling me that you actually fantasize of getting fucked in the ass?" Edward asked.

Bella's frustration with Edward had kept her blush at bay so far, but she felt her cheeks begin to flame. "So what if I do? So what if I fantasize of a dick in every orifice?" _Did she? Maybe. It was no business of Edward's. All that mattered was that she win this argument._ "I'm sure you'll just say it's the perversion of the elderly virgin. So repressed that I have to fantasize more and more graphic scenes to get off. That doesn't change the fact that you should get pegged."

 _Pegged?_

 _Edward?!_

"Fuck no," Edward replied, crossing his own arms.

Bella adopted an imperious air. "I thought that you were the big hedonist. The one who was so very corrupt. And you're shying away from a strap-on?"

"It's not the same thing." Edward was pissed that Bella had somehow flipped the tables on him, yet again.

"Don't give me that. You expect me to believe that you've never had a little finger action?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Becoming increasingly agitated, Edward tried to deflect. "I like my women tied up." It was an exaggeration, but he was trying to change the subject.

"Just imagine it, though. Party in the front _and_ in the back." Bella eyed him for a moment. "You _have_ had sex with more than one person at a time I assume."

"Sure," Edward replied warily, happy that the tone of the conversation had shifted, but worried that it was going to turn against him again.

"How many? I mean, what's the highest number of people you've indulged?"

"Just four. Four total, I mean."

Bella's eyes widened. " _Just_ four?" She didn't know if she was more surprised that the number was so high or that it was so low. "Hmph. Genders?"

Edward thought a minute. "Three women, once. And a couple of times with two women and another guy. Once with one woman and two men." Edward cocked an eyebrow, remembering what Bella had said. " _Every_ orifice? Really? How often do you fantasize about that one?"

It took Bella a moment to take in everything he'd said. _Three women?_

Ignoring his last question, she asked, "So you've made out with a guy at least?"

Edward grimaced. "No. Why would you ask that?"

"Uh, you had sex with other guys."

"No. I had sex with _women_."

"My God, how uptight you are. Do you know that the word 'orgy' in Greek means 'angry?' I think that probably explains a great deal about you."

"It's just sex," Edward said, as if that would explain everything.

"I think you would look good kissing a man. And if you were already having sex—I mean, he would have been right there. Why not?"

"I just haven't." Edward didn't like where this conversation was going again.

"I think you're repressed."

"I'm not repressed."

"I think you should kiss a man."

"Why?" Edward guffawed. The notion was ludicrous.

"You're always saying that I don't know what I'm missing when it comes to sex. How do you know that you're not missing something when it comes to men? You won't even let a woman peg you. At least kiss a guy."

"No."

"You can be like Katy Perry. Except that instead of singing 'I kissed a girl' you'd be singing 'I kissed a boy.'"

It seemed to Edward that Bella was finding all of this entirely too amusing.

She clapped her hands. "Oh! Even better. Jill Sobule's 'I kissed a girl.' Do you remember that song?"

"I do."

"Fabio was in the video. Is he your type?"

"I don't have a type. Not at least for men."

"He's not my type either," Bella admitted.

"Who is your type then?" Edward asked, trying to turn the tables on her. _How did she keep doing this to him?_

"We're talking about you, not me," Bella said, trying to avoid the question.

"Tell me your type and I'll tell you mine."

"I thought that you didn't have a type—for men," Bella reminded him.

"I do have a type—when it comes to women. Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine."

Bella smiled, assuming—correctly—that Edward was expecting to hear her type when it came to _men_. "Famke Jensen. And variations thereof."

Edward blinked. "So _yourself_. You want to fuck _yourself_. Brunettes with big eyes."

Bella stared at Edward. It hadn't occurred to her that she had, in fact, described herself. "I'm not that pretty," she deflected. "Or thin. Now it's your turn."

"Famke Jensen."

 **AN: Sorry for the delay in responding to reviews. I will reply ASAP.**


	16. Chapter 16

**Sorry for the delay.**

 **Warning: References to suicide in this chapter. If you live in the USA and need help, text "Go" to 741741 or call 1-800-273-8255. Other support services available at www dot crisistextline dot org**

 **Final chapter of extended philosophical discourse. Note: There are especially wordy quotations.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

"The predominate image of appetite in classical texts is that of a vessel…Through its mouth or its mouths the vessel engages with the world. It is not penetrated by the world, it absorbs it. It devours it; it fills itself from the world's pleasure streams. The image of the bottomless vessel or the damaged vessel enables desire to be derived from emptiness, from lack, from need, making the _kinaidos_ [the whore but also the one who seeks to satisfy his desires to excess] a precursor of the modern addict. Both are defined not by extra pleasure but by diminished satisfaction. Both suffer from errant appetites and damaged needs." – James Davidson _Courtesans and Fishcakes_

Chapter 16

Edward loved to run. He loved the feeling of the wind against his cheeks, the exhilaration of his blood pounding through his veins, the feeling of power as his feet flew over the ground.

Sunlight poured through the trees around him as he ran, dappling the brown earth, like scattered coins, and drenching the leaves, like droplets of water.

At first, Edward thought that it was just a bird, the sound coming from around the next curve in the trail, a teasing chirp.

But every time he thought he was almost upon it, it would skip ahead again, just out of reach.

Then he caught a slip of flesh—a flash of pale skin—and a long tendril of brown hair, stealing behind a tree, out of sight.

Edward ran faster.

It— _she_ —evaded him again, but this time, he glimpsed a whole leg, the back of a thigh shining white and pale.

Pounding up the next slope, Edward heard a snatch of laughter, and when he rounded yet another bend, he was rewarded—at last—by the sight of _her_ , yes _her_ , the one he'd been chasing all along She was waiting for him, looking back over her shoulder, pausing just long enough for him to catch up to he before sprinting off again.

Edward had been running full tilt, and still she evaded him.

He pushed himself even harder, leaping over tree roots and dodging rocks.

Every time he thought that he was getting close, she'd disappear again.

And every time that he thought that he'd lost her, there'd she be, waiting for him, flashes of skin showing amidst snake-like mahogany tresses and shining eyes.

Temptation and denial.

Over and over and over again.

Finally, panting like a dog and ready to drop with exhaustion, Edward forced himself past the point of endurance. She was just a step ahead, just a second faster. If he could just—

Edward reached out a hand and felt a tendril of hair snaking down his wrist.

Which was when Edward woke up.

He was drenched in sweat and panting, like he'd actually been running a race.

 _Well_ , he consoled himself, _Bella can't hold nighttime emissions against me._

And explosive it had been.

Turned out that denial had a function after all.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Edward had the entire day to himself. He wasn't due back at the hospital until the following evening and, aside from a few bills, he had nothing pressing to take of.

Unfortunately, Edward had an assignment. And he wasn't looking forward to it.

Apparently, Bella had almost finished reading the copy of _Terese_ that he'd given her. And she was more than a little pissed by the fact that he hadn't even started reading the book that she'd given him, the copy of Seneca.

Now, Edward was pretty sure that Bella's annoyance was in large derived from the fact that the _Terese_ had done its job. That is, Bella was starting to realize that she was wrong.

Edward could just picture Bella's aggravation as she reached the final pages of the novel, with Teresa locked in a room filled with erotic images and novels. The Count's made a deal with Terese. If she can manage to resist temptation for two weeks, she wins. But if she gives into her temptations and seeks relief—if she's so overcome by the suggestive nature of her surroundings that she masturbates—she has to become the Count's mistress

Edward had seen Bella's library for himself. And he had a few ideas about the kind of fantasies she harbored. Staid, she was not.

Indeed, if he was any judge, Bella was at a tipping point.

So she could babble about asceticism all she liked. Edward wasn't buying it.

Besides, the way Edward saw it, if there really was a God, then He was the one responsible for giving man the means to achieve pleasure and satisfaction in this life. In other words, God was responsible for giving us bodies.

So why should a woman—why should Bella—deny herself the fulfillment of her body's own desires? That body, that pleasure, was a gift from God.

In fact, it would take a fickle and cruel god to give us something that He didn't want us to use.

Edward knew Bella would say to that, of course. She would say that it was just a test. That we were given bodies to learn how to suffer.

But that didn't make sense to Edward. It seemed to him that only a sadistic god would do such a thing. A Marquis de Sade of gods.

Nevertheless, fair was fair. Bella was reading _Terese_. It was only fair that Edward read the Seneca.

Not that first century ethics was exactly a fair trade for eighteenth century porn.

But it was something of a relief to Edward to learn that this Seneca wasn't perfect.

To be honest, Seneca was quite a fuck up.

But Edward wasn't sure how he felt about the fact that Seneca had killed himself.

Supposedly, Nero was going to have Seneca executed, so maybe Seneca thought that killing himself was an act of defiance.

But maybe he should have fought. Maybe he should've _forced_ Nero to kill him.

Wasn't that what everyone always said? That you should fight? That suicide was for cowards?

Meaning that _Edward_ would be a coward if he took that route, if he took the so-called _easy_ way out.

In any case, Edward was fully prepared to hate Seneca. He was looking forward to telling Bella just how little he thought of her little philosopher.

With a roll of his eyes, Edward opened to the first essay.

(Yes, _essay_.)

(At least _Terese_ had a bunch of sex to break up the tedium of the debates.)

So imagine Edward's surprise when he discovered that Seneca wasn't as bad as he expected.

Make no mistake, Seneca _was_ a fuck up. But he didn't pretend otherwise.

He would start babbling every once in a while—spouting high-sounding nonsense about the pleasures of austerity—but then he would turn around and say something to show that he got it.

That he _really_ got it.

Dressed up in florid language, it still came across.

" _When I looked into myself, some of my vices appeared clearly on the surface, so that I could lay my hand on them; some were more hidden away in the depths; some were not there all the time but return at intervals._ "

And that was exactly how it felt to Edward with his addiction. Like his vices were always there, some of them plain to see, while others lurked below the surface, waiting to destroy him.

Seneca even understood how it was with the hidden vices, how they were the worst.

" _These last I would say are the most troublesome: they are like prowling enemies who pounce on you when the occasion offers, and allow you neither to be at the ready as in war nor at ease in peace._ "

Edward had long ago realized that it was simpler to tackle a vice that he could clearly see. The hidden ones were the problem, the longings that he didn't even realize that he had. Those were the ones that really made him struggle. Made him want to give up, because what was the point, when every time he thought that he was making some headway he fell behind again?

And what progress had he really made?

He'd gone without sex for months, but he knew that it wasn't as easy as that. Edward wasn't cured.

The sickness was just lying dormant, just waiting until he was at his weakest to strike again.

Seneca knew that was like, maybe, but it wasn't like he had a magical panacea. Seneca didn't have some special trick. He was just a guy. Just a fuck up.

Which brought Edward back to the subject of Seneca's qualifications. Who was Seneca to be doling out advice? Seneca had tutored Nero, after all. Seneca was responsible for raising one of the most decadent and debauched rulers of all time. He, of all people, had no business telling people what to do.

" _I'm not so shameless as to set about treating people when I'm sick myself. I'm talking to you as if I were lying in the same hospital ward, about we're both suffering from, and passing on some remedies._ "

At least Seneca recognized his own hypocrisy.

But still. If someone had asked _Edward_ for help, Edward would've kept his mouth shut.

Better that then: _Sorry bro, you're fucked._ Because that would've been the sum total of what Edward had to say.

Which is why it was especially annoying that Bella—perfect, uncorrupted Bella—had been the one to give him the Seneca. Like she knew something worth knowing. How could she?

Yeah, she'd seen some shit.

But she wasn't corrupted. She didn't know what it was like.

So who the hell was she to be giving Edward a book like this? As if she knew what it was like to feel so goddamn tired all of the time, so worn out and frustrated with the day-to-day bullshit after the old stand-bys—the things that kept Edward going—when they ceased to give any relief, when there was no use for pleasure anymore because it had become so rote, so exhausted, that it was no longer a source of anything approaching happiness.

 _Because that's what happens when you lose all sense of moderation,_ Edward realized.

Which was why it didn't matter that Edward had gone four months without sex. Deep down inside, Edward knew that he was little better off.

" _Even when they're over, pleasures of a depraved nature are apt to carry feelings of dissatisfaction, in the same way as a criminal's anxiety doesn't end with the commission of the crime, even if it's undetected at the time. Such pleasures are insubstantial and unreliable; even if they don't do one any harm, they're fleeting in character. Look around for some enduring good instead_."

Some enduring good.

 _Some enduring good?_

As if.

What _enduring good_ was Edward exactly supposed to be looking for?

And so what if he had some anxiety? So what if he felt guilty now and then? Wasn't it just a latent sense of false morality? Edward was just as brainwashed as everyone else, programmed to think that there was a difference between right and wrong.

If nothing else, his mother had taught him that that was just bullshit. That there's no real difference between good and bad. Because when basic instincts aren't enough to stop you from hurting your own offspring, then how the fuck is a man-made moral code supposed to do the trick?

 _What's the point?_ Bella had asked him. _What's the point of going around fucking and fucking and fucking?_

There _was_ no point. That was the problem. Nothing mattered because there was no fucking point.

 _Fuck this book_ , Edward thought. _And fuck Bella for giving it to me._

Hence Edward's pleasure when he thought he'd found a flaw in Seneca's reasoning.

" _Natural desires are limited,"_ Seneca argued. _"Those which spring from false opinions have nowhere to stop, for falsity has no point of termination. When a person is following a track, there is an eventual end to it somewhere, but with wandering at large there is no limit. So give up pointless, empty journeys, and whenever you want to know whether the desire aroused in you by something you are pursuing is natural or quite unseeing, as yourself whether it is capable of coming to rest at any point; if after going a long way there is always something remaining farther away, be sure it is not something natural."_

So much for Seneca's so-called _enduring good_. If it wasn't natural for something to last, to endure, then, by Seneca's own definition, good too was a perversion.

It seemed that the old Roman wasn't so smart after all.

And maybe Seneca wasn't really equipped to fix Edward's problems.

It was almost a relief to Edward, realizing that he might be beyond help. With problems that big, it certainly wasn't _Edward's_ fault that he was still struggling.

Mingled with the relief, however, was a kind of grief. Because Edward wanted help. He wanted someone to give him the answers.

At the same time, he wanted to prove Bella wrong. He wanted to be able to throw her book back in her face.

Conflicted, Edward felt a growing sense so uneasiness.

" _People who know no self-restraint lead stormy and disordered lives, passing their time in a state of fear commensurate with the injuries they do to others, never able to relax. After every act they tremble, paralyzed, their consciences continually demanding an answer, not allowing them to get on with other things. To expect punishment is to suffer it; and to earn it is to expect it._ "

Edward snorted.

 _To expect punishment is to suffer it?_

 _Bullshit_.

Edward wasn't afraid of anything.

 _Then again—_

He feared exposure, didn't he? He was afraid of everyone learning the truth about him. About his addiction.

In fact, he had spent most of his life afraid. Afraid that people would find out about his mother. Afraid that they would think that he deserved it. Afraid that people would find out that he sometimes sat in the break room and thought about going up to the roof.

Not that he thought about the roof very much anymore.

And there was a sense of excitement mingled in with the fear sometimes. Part of him thought that it would be strangely liberating for everyone to know the truth at last.

There was something a little intoxicating about the danger of revelation. All of those times he'd had sex at work, the risk of being caught made it all the more entertaining. That time he took Tanya home, part of him was looking forward to disappointing his family.

That wasn't really bravery though. And Edward _had_ been caught at work, only to panic. He ended up groveling before the administration, begging them not to fire him.

His parents didn't say a word about Tanya—not directly—but Edward knew that they weren't happy. They had already put up with so much from him. The way he would ignore them for months on end. His temper tantrums.

He was afraid of losing his family. Afraid of losing his job.

And all of these months later, he was still so fucking terrified.

All because of his addictions.

If not for them, Edward's job wouldn't be at risk. His family wouldn't hate him.

Edward had long since decided that the answer to fear was to face it, to do the very thing you feared, to commit crimes even, if that's what it took.

 _Afraid of losing your stepbrother?_

Easy. Have sex with his girlfriend. _Push him away._

 _Afraid of disappointing your father?_

Easy. Bring your fuck-buddy home for the weekend and flaunt your relationship in front of your parents. _Force them to wash their hands of you._

But Bella was right. Edward _hadn't_ , in fact, committed every crime. And he had no intention of ever doing so.

And even if he did—even if he became some depraved villain from a Marquis de Sade novel—Edward had no guarantee that he wouldn't tire of that, too. He would no doubt exhaust depravity, just like he'd exhausted everything else, until there was nothing left.

Which was why Edward was a fucking hypocrite: He wasn't the arch-monster he'd always pictured himself to be.

But he was still corrupt. Bella was wrong to think he could be redeemed.

So what then? What was the answer?

Seneca recommended seeking out the source of your fear.

 _Afraid of poverty?_

Live frugally, voluntarily.

But Edward had tried to make his fears come true. It had backfired.

Maybe that was because he was focusing on the wrong fears.

 _The end of pleasure_.

Wasn't that Edward's real fear?

By Seneca's logic, Edward should deny himself pleasure.

And Edward had been doing just that. Denying himself sex.

But it wasn't working. He was still struggling to get by.

It didn't make sense.

" _Let us measure things by their qualities of functions_."

Wasn't the function of pleasure to provide relief from pain? Food and drink and sex were just the means to that end.

" _Let food banish hunger and drink banish thirst; let sex indulge its needs_."

But weren't those needs insatiable? Hunger pangs and thirst always returned. The desire for sex was a basic drive, not to be hindered by cold human intellect.

" _We must restrict our activities so that Fortune's weapons miss their mark_."

 _Fortune?_

Dumb luck.

 _Your boss walking in on you having sex at work._

The meaning was plain: _Ration yourself before someone else does it for you_.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

"What's your point?" Bella asked, even though she knew damn well the point he was making.

She had to lean forward to hear Edward's response. They were meeting later in the evening than usual, and the coffee shop was crowded. The music, too, seemed to have been turned up.

"By Seneca's line of reasoning," Edward said, raising his voice so that Bella could hear him, "the truly moral person is the one who has sex but practices moderation. And if moderation's the ideal, there's nothing moral about virginity."

 _Well damn_ , Bella thought, because Edward was right. Right about Seneca at least.

And that was bullshit.

Bella didn't want to talk about Seneca. She was afraid that talking about Seneca would lead to talking about _Terese_.

And _fuck_ that book. A lot of pretty words and clever arguments didn't mean that Edward was right and that Bella was wrong. Not when Bella could feel the truth in her bones.

Of course, if Bella had her way, she wouldn't be a virgin anymore by the time that her little contest with Edward was over. But not because Edward was right about virginity being a waste of time.

No. It was because Bella had a plan.

"If moderation's the ideal," Bella deflected, "then you should avoid extremes. Is that what you're saying?"

Edward nodded, pleased, because he thought he was winning an argument with her for once.

She quirked an eyebrow. "By that logic, heterosexuality is a radical perversion, don't you think?"

Edward sat back. "It's individual taste isn't it?" It wasn't that Edward was in the least bit homophobic. _He didn't_ think _that he was homophobic._

It was just—

He'd never—

Bella shrugged. "It's extremism. And therefore, by your definition, immoral."

Just then, a brace of laughter sounded from the other side of the coffee shop. Grateful for the distraction, Edward changed the subject. "Is it like this every night?" he asked. Most of the patrons had exchanged their coffee mugs for beer steins, and there was less reading and studying than laughing and talking.

"I think so." Bella paused. "Actually, some of the other grad students are stopping here tonight, if you want to meet them." Bella's tone was cautious.

"Introducing me to your friends?" Edward joked, surprised and not quite sure what to make of this new development.

"I may have an ulterior motive," Bella confessed, avoiding his gaze.

Edward watched her take a sip of her coffee.

Bella didn't have the kind of features that attracted much attention. Some would've probably called her _plain_ , but Edward thought that so-called _plainness_ was more an artifact of her obvious weariness than anything else, the result of hard work, day in and day out.

Because when she smiled, _holy fuck_ —when it was genuine—it was all the better for being so very unexpected.

And she was smiling when she looked up, having caught sight of her friends. Turning, Edward saw that they'd grabbed a booth. Bella suggested that they join them, and Edward would've agreed, of course, but that tantalizing smile when Bella stood and glanced back at him over her shoulder—

Just like in his dream.

Had Edward stumbling after her without a second's hesitation.

Three beers later, Edward was trying to follow a conversation between Bella and two of her friends—named Angela and Jared, or something like that—about some bitch professor who was giving them all grief.

The professor in question was apparently the same one responsible for sending Bella to Breaking Dawn. Edward was sure that had to be in violation of ethics.

Angela started arguing with one of the other grad students about some language exam, and Bella turned to Jared.

"So Jacob," she started.

Edward realized that _Jared_ 's name was actually _Jacob_.

"I've got a bet going with Edward here." Bella's eyes darted from Jacob to Edward and back again.

Edward couldn't help choking a bit on his beer. Clearing his throat, he eyed Bella carefully. _What the hell is she doing?_

Jacob laughed. "A bet? Do I want to hear what it's about?"

"Probably not," Bella said. "But it involves you, so I think that you should know about it."

Edward shook his head. He didn't like where this was going.

"And how does it involve me?" Jacob asked.

"Well, I bet Edward that he wouldn't kiss a guy."

 _What the fuck?_

Ignoring Edward, Jacob asked "And what does he get if he wins?"

"He thinks I'm repressed—"

"You _are_ repressed, Jacob interrupted.

Edward had to agree, even if he didn't care for Jacob's obvious familiarity with the subject of Bella's sexual activity, or lack thereof.

Bella continued. "If Edward gets some action, I will too."

Edward tried to interrupt. "Bella—"

"What?" Bella rounded on him. "Afraid?"

 _Yeah, fuck that_.

"I'm not afraid of anything," Edward told her.

"Well then, what's the problem?"

Edward couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Don't you think that you're taking advantage of your friend Jacob here?"

Bella turned to Jacob. "No pressure. If you don't want to help out, you don't have to."

But Jacob was grinning. "You know me. I'm always up for helping a sister settle a bet."

"Let's go then," Bella pushed Edward out of the booth, and followed after him, dragging Jacob by the hand.

"Now?" Edward asked. _What the fuck?_ Did she expect them to make-out in the alley outside?

"We can just dance," Bella said, pulling him away from the table. "I thought you liked to dance."

And Edward looked around to see that, indeed, a makeshift dance floor had been set up, a few of the tables having been shoved out of the way to make room for a few couples. Someone had even dimmed the lights.

Edward tried to place the song that was playing. Something by _Band of Horses_.

Stepping onto the dance floor, Bella started swaying to the music—

And Edward realized that he must be drunker than he thought. He'd always been a lightweight.

Because _this_ wasn't the Bella he remembered from last time. This wasn't the same Bella who had been so upset with him for making her dance with him.

"'Don't you trust me?'" she asked, moving his hands to her waist. "Isn't that what you asked me the last time we danced? Don't you trust me?"

They had danced before, of course, but it had been Edward's idea last time.

He couldn't quite figure out what Bella had in mind now. And he wasn't sure how he felt about ceding control.

It was like that time she gave him a lap dance, only different. They had still hated each other back then, absolutely despised each other. And even though she was giving him a lap dance, it was clear that it was only to aggravate him.

And now?

And now, some mellow Neo-folk track was playing, and Edward felt kind of drunk, and Bella was swaying in front of him, waiting for him to dance with her.

What kind of a guy lets a woman dance without him?

Shaking his head, Edward shifted his feet, picking up the rhythm, only to stiffen when he felt Jacob slipping an arm around him from behind.

"What are you so afraid of?" Bella asked Edward again, more softly this time. "Jacob's not going to eat you."

"Strictly vegetarian," Jacob chuckled in Edward's ear.

"See?" Bella asked, shaking her head. "You keep saying that I need to lose control when you're the one who's on lockdown. You need to relax."

She ran a finger across his jaw, the sensation startling Edward because it was so unexpected. It'd been months since anyone had touched him like that.

"I'm not tense," Edward lied.

"You've got a vice-grip on me, Edward," Bella said.

Edward immediately dropped his hands and started to back up, only to knock into Jacob.

"What's this got to do with our contest?" Edward asked, because he didn't understand. "What's this got to do with virtue?" He didn't give a damn that Jacob was listening.

Actually, scratch that. Because Edward gave a damn. He didn't want Jacob to have anything to do with this. With Bella.

It was a new sensation for Edward-this desire to have a woman to himself.

"The contest isn't about virtue," Bella replied. "It's about you thinking that it's alright to tell me what's right for me, regardless of what I feel. It's about you claiming to be so utterly debauched that-"

Bella broke off.

Because she was crossing a line, wasn't she? She was taking advantage of Jacob. And Edward was clearly uncomfortable.

But what was the difference between what she was doing to Edward now and what he was trying to do to her? Both of them were trying to impose their own ideas about-

Edward was kissing Jacob.

The kiss wasn't at all what Edward had expected.

Or rather, he didn't know what he'd expected, but it certainly wasn't this. Strong and soft at the same time.

Then he felt the bristle of a five o'clock shadow.

Edward's eyes flew open as he pulled away.

The kiss had lasted only a few seconds. But it was long enough.

Dazed-and unsure who was winning this round, Bella or him-Edward looked down at Bella and was surprised to see that she looked just as dazed as he felt, as if the sight of the two men kissing wasn't quite what she'd expected.

"Your turn," Edward told her in a gravelly voice.

Blinking, Bella glanced at Jacob, her face tipping up for a kiss.

"No," Edward said. "Not him. Me."

And he pulled her towards him.

 **AN:**

 **Beginning next week, I will be updating on Saturdays.**

The Seneca the Younger quotes from this chapter come from _On Tranquility of Mind_ translated by C. D. N. Costa, and Letters xvi, xxvii, cv, and cxxiii translated by Robin Campbell


	17. Chapter 17

**If you read the last chapter in the first few hours after it was posted, please note that some details have been revised in the last scene, but the takeaway remains the same. Someone pointed out that the story might have been implying something that I didn't mean to imply.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

 _'O great goddess Bamboozle_!' – Aristophanes, translator unknown

Chapter 17

Bella had spent the afternoon psyching herself up to kiss Jacob. They weren't really friends—more like acquaintances—but she knew him well enough to know that he would be cool about it. She had heard him tell enough wild stories about his weekends to be confident that he'd think that it was a joke, which was just she wanted. She knew that the other grad students would try to make something out of it, but she couldn't care less what they thought.

It was even kind of comical, watching Edward squirm over the thought of kissing another guy. They were just lips after all—lips and tongue—and they were the same whether the person wielding them was male or female.

But that wasn't true, was it? Because when Jacob finally pressed his lips to Edward's, Bella's breath had stuttered in her chest. _Holy crap_ , she thought. It was hot. Edward was—well he was Edward. Longtime adversary. But also the recent star of Bella's fantasies and dreams.

And though she'd never really thought of Jacob romantically, he wasn't exactly hard on the eyes.

Together, Edward and Jacob just looked so right. Equals—like they belonged with each other.

Which was why Bella was a little dazed when they pulled apart and Edward looked down at her. She didn't really have time to think about what she was doing as she turned towards Jacob, doing so almost automatically, because that was the deal, but struck too by a sudden desire to be part of what she'd just seen, to experience it for herself.

So it was a shock when Edward pulled her towards him instead. Gasping with surprise, Bella's lips were already open when his mouth descended onto hers.

She was too taken aback by what was happening to protest when he tugged at her lower lip. One of Edward's hands slipped to her lower back, pressing the two of them together, while his other hand moved to cradle the back of her head, angling her head so that he didn't knock into her glasses as his tongue slipped between her lips.

And _fuck_.

Edward's touch was gentle. She hadn't expected that. She wasn't prepared for the way his lips teased hers, and his tongue toyed at the entrance of her mouth before sliding over her tongue.

He was so fucking cautious and tender, like he was afraid she might bolt.

Yet he was thorough, too, kissing her so carefully and gently and thoroughly, like he was afraid that this might be the one and only time he got to kiss her, and he wanted to do a good job.

And Bella's heart was thundering away in her chest as all rational thought fled.

It felt so nice, so good, and she didn't know what to do with that. Her dream-Edwards weren't so gentle. They were rough. They were cruel. They didn't take their time.

She could feel tears pricking at the back of her eyes and she didn't know why.

It felt good and it hurt all at the same time and it didn't make any sense at all.

She had spent all of this time preparing herself for the other Edward, the one who wouldn't be kind, the one who she had erected all of her walls for. She didn't know what to do with this Edward. His kiss was so unexpected that she didn't have time to erect all of her walls. Oh, she still had her outer walls up—the ones that were always in place. But the way he was kissing her—with his soft kisses—he was making progress where brute force would have never worked, slipping through the cracks in her outer walls and seeping past her defenses like water or air.

She could feel him beginning to steal inside of her.

And it was terrifying and delicious and simultaneously the worst and the best thing ever.

Edward knew that he was taking a chance. Already this kiss with Bella had lasted much longer than his kiss with Jacob. He was waiting—waiting as patiently as he could (and the anticipation was killing him)—for her to kiss him back. For her lips to surge against his and her tongue to tangle with his own.

He had almost given up hope when it happened. She sighed softly, and seconds later her hands were sliding around his neck and she moved to close the last few millimeters of distance between them, her lips beginning to work as her tongue tasted him.

Which only fueled Edward's efforts as he began kissing her with renewed energy.

It was something of a new experience for Edward. Oh, he had a great deal of experience, but for him a kiss had always been a part of foreplay, with an immediate payoff.

Here, he had no promise of a payoff. And yet he found himself wanting to drag it out for as long as possible. His desire was all the stronger for knowing that he couldn't have what he really wanted.

Of course, the kiss had to end at some point.

To the casual observer—and to every one of Bella's fellow graduate students (including Jacob who had returned to the table)—it was obvious that Bella and Edward had entered that awkward stage of the mating ritual wherein an attraction is obviously present but doubt lingers as to the suitability of the match. If a match is indeed suitable, it behooves each party to invest their resources in pursuing it. But as long as there is uncertainty, there is danger. Investing too many resources in a doomed romance lowers the chances that a person will find an acceptable mate. But overlooking a potential mate also carries risks. There is no easy solution.

No one was surprised when Bella and Edward returned to the table and bid their adieus. Most assumed that the couple was leaving in order to pursue the question of their compatibility in a more intimate setting.

In fact, Bella and Edward had no such intention. Or rather, Bella had no such intention and Edward, guessing (correctly) Bella's position on the subject, sought only to distract Bella from the swirl of regret and confusion into whence she had obviously descended.

Driving her home, Edward started an argument with her about her choice of music, pointing out that the way she switched between radio stations in his car—going from Classical to Hip hop to Country to Rock to Pop to Oldies—implied a lack of consistency and low standards.

Edward's ploy worked, for the time being, the argument (contradictorily) easing the tension between the two of them so that Bella was even laughing by the time that she was getting out of his car. It was so easy—perhaps too easy—for them to fall into an argument. It was what they were good at. It was what they knew.

But Bella had barely made it through the door of her apartment before she was struck with remorse. Not over the argument, but over the kiss.

Which made no sense at all. Because she was supposed to kiss him, wasn't she? That was the whole point.

She wasn't supposed to like it though. She had been imagining what it would be like to be with Edward, so that she was ready for it, but she had never really expected to like it.

And there was, again, the troubling manner in which he had kissed her. So very gently. It wasn't supposed to be like that.

There was also the anxiety aroused by speculation as to Edward's reaction to the kiss. He appeared to have enjoyed it. But what did that mean? And was it sincere?

Alas, Bella's nervousness with regard to these issues left no room for her to realize a far more damning problem: If Edward was in fact sincere in his interest in Bella, then this was a sign that Bella's plan was succeeding. But the success of her plan would involve hurting Edward. Was that still something she wanted to do?

The next day, Edward sent Bella a text: " _It is one of the superstitions of mankind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue_." The text was Edward's way of trying to restore the status quo. Of reassuring Bella that nothing had really changed.

This was a bit of duplicitousness on Edward's part. A great deal had changed in their relationship and Edward knew it. He was, in fact, pleased at the change. (Though he hadn't really taken time to think about what it might mean.) But he knew enough to know that Bella would not take kindly to the change. He had determined that subterfuge was his best bet.

Bella was a bit taken aback by Edward's text. Not at the sentiment—Edward certainly wasn't saying anything that he hadn't said before—but after the kiss they'd exchanged, the comment seemed so much more personal.

It took Bella a while to find a suitable response, but it was with a sense of relish that Bella sent if off: " _Appetitus rationi pareat. Let your desires be ruled by reason_."

Edward had been apprehensively waiting for Bella's response, afraid that none would come. So he was only too happy when her text came.

He was especially pleased to see that Bella was playing the game.

Given her use of religion in previous debates, he figured that she'd appreciate (or, rather, to be more precise, chagrined by) his response: " _Your body is the church where Nature asks to be reverenced._ "

Bella glared at her phone. _Who does he think he is?_

Edward was the one who'd scorned the association of sexual bliss with religious ecstasy. _Pigs_ , he'd said. _We're all pigs_.

Bella was quite pleased with herself when she found an emoji of a pig to send with her response: " _The greatest pleasures are only narrowly separated from disgust_."

Her arrow hit its mark. Edward felt a small pang of shame at the memory of throwing his words at Bella that day in the coffeehouse. He knew that he had been projecting his own self-loathing onto her with that little speech.

But the past was the past. Edward wasn't going to let a little regret get in the way of one-upping Bella in this little game of wits.

He quickly sent off a reply (well, as quickly as a Google search on his phone helped him find an appropriate reply): " _Nature has not got two voices, you know, one of them condemning all day what the other commands_."

Bella didn't quite know what to do with that. As the minutes ticked by, she wracked her brains for a suitable response. In the end, she reasoned that the introduction of Nature into the contest made it only fitting that she turn to the subject of cultivation. " _If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."_

The second Bella hit _send,_ she knew that she'd made a mistake.

 _A garden and a library? Really?_

She could just picture Edward laughing at her.

Indeed, Edward was still chuckling as he began searching for his reply. And it was with a smile of absolute delight that he hit _send_. " _Her valleys are like Eden, her hills are like Lebanon, she is a paradise of pleasure and a garden of delight_."

And Bella was annoyed all over again, because _damn_ if that didn't sound like her beloved _Song of Songs._

Bella's response—when she finally sent it off—wasn't exactly on point, but her search turned up a woefully disappointing number of obvious double entendres in Roman agricultural manuals: " _The diligent farmer plants trees, of which he himself will never see the fruit_."

It wasn't until the following day that Edward came up with a response, and it took Bella a few hours to reply. They continued like that, texting back and forth, playing their little game, neither one willing to admit defeat and both of them enjoying the battle of wits far more than either would have expected.

To a casual observer, it was obvious that the next stage in the mating dance had begun.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

"Anyhow, the café's going to have a booth there," Alice explained. "With food. So you have to come."

Bella was still struggling to come to grips with the story with which Alice had launched this announcement. "Wait, you tried to sneak into his café?" Bella asked.

"I wanted a Danish!" Alice exclaimed.

"They can't possibly be that good."

"They are! And I just had to have another one. It had been a whole week! I was jonesing for a fix."

"So what? Mop-guy recognized you?" Bella was trying to understand exactly what had happened. Apparently, Alice had snuck back into the café where she had so spectacularly embarrassed herself in front of the mop-wielding proprietor.

"Well, not at first."

"What do you mean?"

Alice huffed. "I was in disguise!"

Bella burst out laughing, covering the mouthpiece of the phone to try to muffle the sound.

But Alice could hear alright.

Mournfully, Alice tried to defend herself. "You don't know what it's like! He puts crack or something in those Danishes. So I was wearing sunglasses and a jacket with the hood up, which was probably a little over the top, but it was from the new Versaci line and the sunglasses were Gucci."

This added detail only elicited another burst of laughter from Bella.

"Anyhow," Alice explained, "I'd almost made my getaway when it happened."

Bella prompted her. "What?"

"I ran into him again. _Right_ into him. I almost fell on my ass."

Bella was positively cackling by now.

"It isn't funny!" Alice cried. "He knew right away it was me. And he wanted to know what I was doing back in his café." Alice scoffed. "Like he had a right to deny me service or something. Well, I wasn't going to take that. I told him that I was going to report him to the police for putting crack in his Danishes."

"What the fuck?" Bella couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"And then I ran out. So now he thinks I'm even crazier than before. I can't go back. Like ever. But I _need_ those Danishes. They put up a sign in the window saying that they're going to have a booth at Octoberfest. I have to go! I have to!"

"They might not even be serving Danishes there," Bella warned her.

Alice hissed. "Don't say that! Why would you say that? What's wrong with you?"

"Look, I have a lot of work to do but I'll try to come."

"Edward's going to be there," Alice trilled.

Sensing Bella's hesitation, Alice chuckled. "Thought so. I'll give you a ride."

Bella sighed, and accepted the offer.

Wishing Bella a fond farewell, Alice disconnected the call and quickly dialed Edward's number.

"Oh brother dear," she sang when he answered.

"What?" he asked suspiciously.

"What do you mean 'what'? I'm your sister. You should be excited to receive a phone call from me."

"My break's almost over," Edward warned her, wondering if answering the call had been a mistake. His relationship with his siblings was still rocky.

"Octoberfest is this weekend," she explained.

"And?" Edward didn't see what the celebration of all things _October-y_ had to do with him.

"And there'll be beer and pumpkins and hay and horses and you should come along. Emmett and Rosalie are going."

"Alice, that's not really—"

"Bella's going too."

Edward's silence was Alice's answer. "Right, so I'll text you the details," she said. "Bye!" And she hung up.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Bella loved autumn.

No really. She fucking loved autumn.

There was just something about the cool crisp air and the smell—somehow smoky and clean all at the same time—something about all of the season that just made Bella's senses tingle even as she somehow felt strangely at ease.

It was the sweet and sour taste of warm apple cider, the savory and sugary flavor of squashes and pumpkins. The riot of color as the leaves changed and the inky black tracery of branches as the same leaves began to fall.

Bella loved the cold mornings, the sunlight chipping away at the banks of fog.

She loved the anticipation of a new school year, with new things to learn and new ideas and, yes, despite her social anxiety, the excitement of new faces, new students and new challenges.

Quixotic creature that she was, it was no surprise that she should love Halloween. It wasn't the horror associated with the occasion that she favored so much as it was the subversion of that very thing: Vampires and ghouls revealed as nothing more formidable than a cadre of small children, the lot of them giggling and asking for candy. It was the delight of inversion. The carnivalesque emasculation of the things that bump and creep in the night.

Bella never went trick-or-treating with Alice. Bella spent Halloweens with her mother until she was fourteen, and by the time that Bella moved to Forks to live there year-round, she and Alice were too old to feel comfortable trick-or-treating, which was a shame really, given Bella's passion for the season and Alice's own penchant for costumes.

So, Bella and Alice had never really taken advantage of the season—until now.

It was with a giddy air of excitement that the two of them made their way through the festival grounds, enjoying the last bit of late afternoon sunshine. A picturesque little farm had been transformed for the occasion: There was a petting zoo with goats and rabbits, a pumpkin patch, games for both children and adults, a haunted barn, and a series of outbuildings filled with hay bales set up in a maze. Festival-goers darted from booth to booth, or strolled casually through the light drizzle, which was too sporadic to upset the festivities.

Technically, the festivities were meant to meant to celebrate _October_ rather than Halloween, but several of the individuals manning the booths and almost all of the children were wearing some sort of costume. Bella had made no effort to dress up, but Alice was wearing all black and a conical witch's hat, and little super heroes and princesses were racing through the crowd.

"You should get your face painted," Alice said, pointing out a booth for just that.

"Maybe later," Bella said, trying to stifle a juvenile longing to follow Alice's advice. _Could she get a face painting? Or would that be weird?_

Bella knew just what she'd ask the artist to paint, too: Medusa. Bella had always sympathized with the cursed creature, deemed, as Medusa was, to be so hideous that the powers-that-be sent a jerk with a mirror to kill her.

Shaking her head, Bella asked "Aren't we supposed to be looking for your Danishes?"

"I think I see the café's logo over there."

Alice started leading the way across the muddy terrain, only to jerk to a halt.

"Shit!" Alice whisper-shouted, ducking her head and grabbing onto Bella's arm. "He's here."

Trying to act casual, Bella glanced at the booth, and was disappointed to see that mop-guy was indeed behind the register, laughing at something that a little girl was saying to him as the girl munched on a goody from the booth.

"Well it is _his_ café," Bella reminded Alice.

"Yeah, but why didn't he just send one of his employees? He didn't have to come himself."

"Alice, this is stupid. You should go up and say you're sorry."

"I already told him that I was sorry."

"Well, say it again. And mean it this time."

Alice shook her head. "It's gone too far! We can never go back to the way things were."

Sighing, Bella began dragging Alice towards the booth.

"Let me go!" Alice slapped at Bella's hands. "Stop it!"

"You're making a scene," Bella admonished her, though so much was going on that no one was really paying them any attention.

"What are you doing? Don't make me go over there!"

But Bella could tell that Alice wasn't fighting all that hard.

Reaching the booth, Bella smiled at mop-guy, who had noticed them at last and was eyeing Alice. The latter had not quite been entirely successful in hiding her face with her witch's hat.

"Hi," Bella said, introducing herself and holding her hand over the table of the booth. "I'm Bella."

Mop-guy hesitated for a second before shaking Bella's hand. "Jasper."

"And this is Alice," Bella explained. "And she's really sorry. And she's not really crazy. Most of the time, at least. She was just really embarrassed over spilling the tray and she overreacted. Do you think that you can cut her a break?"

If Jasper was taken aback by Bella's approach, he nevertheless caught on quickly. And if he didn't seem entirely opposed to taking Bella up on her proposal, he wasn't going to just give in either. "I don't know," Jasper said speculatively. "She kind of hurt my feelings. She said that she was going to report my Danishes."

Bella persisted. "She just really, really, really likes your Danishes." Cocking her head to the side, Bella pursed her lips. "You know what? I actually haven't had one before." She pulled a five dollar bill out of her wallet and dropped it on the table. Picking up one of the Danishes, Bella unwrapped it and took a bite. "Mmm, damn Alice, you were right. This _is_ a pretty good Danish. Even cold."

If Alice was unhappy with the way that Bella had dragged her over here, she was downright annoyed that Bella would have the temerity to not only speak to Jasper on her behalf but to _purchase a Danish._

 _AND NOT GIVE ALICE A BITE!_

But then Jasper was talking directly to Alice. "You really like my Danishes that much?"

Glancing away from Bella— _how dare she!—_ Alice met Jasper's eyes. She felt like such an idiot. But what could she do? She nodded and held her breath, waiting for him to let her have it.

"Cat got your tongue?" he inquired.

Alice narrowed her eyes for a second, then seemed to think better of it and relaxed. "I don't want to piss you off again."

"Well, a lady who likes my food that much can't be all bad," Jasper said, handing Alice a Danish of her own.

Alice couldn't help smiling as she began unwrapping the Danish. "It really is good," she told him.

"I'm glad that you like 'em."

Taking a bite, Alice hummed in contentment. She swallowed and said, "I had to add another thirty minutes to my workouts, just so that I could keep eating them."

"Whatever you're doing, it must be working," Jasper said.

Alice's eyes flickered back to his as he realized what he'd just said.

Clearly flustered, he tried to backtrack. "I mean, you don't look like you need to lose weight." Realizing that she might take that the wrong way, Jasper clarified. "Not that you're too skinny. I just mean that you look good—I mean fine. You look fine." Shaking his head, he gave up. "You know what, never mind."

But Alice was smiling at him over her half-eaten Danish. "Do you bake the pastries yourself?"

"Yeah," Jasper responded, glad that she wasn't making a thing out of what he'd just said. "They're kind of why I got started in this business."

And to the casual observer (who was getting quite a workout with the Cullens these days), it was clear that Alice and Jasper were moving past their little dispute.

Bella (standing in for the ubiquitous casual observer on this occasion) watched quietly as Alice began questioning Jasper about the work involved with opening his own business. Bella stood ready to step in if another fight broke out. But the chef and the fashionista appeared to have broken the ice.

Between customers, Jasper answered Alice's questions. And Bella was surprised when Alice confessed her fears about being stuck managing someone else's boutique for the rest of her life, while her dream of opening her own boutique just fizzled.

"Having fun?" a voice in Bella's ear asked.

A tiny thrill ran through Bella's frame as she turned. Blinking, she found herself strangely affected by Edward's appearance. He was dressed casually in a plaid flannel shirt and a pair of jeans. The last time Bella had seen him dressed like that, they were both teenagers. The feeling of déjà vu was a little jarring. As was the realization that she was dressed almost identically.

"You came," she said, and then felt foolish, because she knew that he could tell from her voice that she was glad to see him.

"Alice said you'd be here," Edward explained.

Ignoring the implications of that statement, Bella glanced back at Alice, who was taste-testing the various caramel-nut concoctions that Jasper had just set out on the table.

"He makes good Danishes," Bella told Edward, by way of introduction to Jasper.

"They're best first thing in the morning!" Alice declared.

"I don't really do dessert for breakfast," Edward said, not unkindly, but simply as an observation.

"Of course not," Bella replied teasingly. "Dessert for breakfast? Sounds like anarchy. And we all know how much you like to keep things under control."

A little surprised at Bella's words, Jasper cast Alice a quizzical look, only for Alice to reply with an expression that—as all behavioral scientists know—means: _STFU—I'll explain later_.

Knowing that they had an audience, Edward decided to pretend that Bella's comment was entirely innocent. Awkwardly, with his hands stuck in his pockets and rocking back and forth on his feet. "So," he started, "you wanna take a look around?"

Bella (still inwardly cringing over her last remark to Edward— _WTF was wrong with her?_ ) turned to Alice (whom, God willing, hadn't heard/understood the worrisome remark).

"I'm just going to stay here and help Jasper," Alice said.

Jasper looked surprised to hear that, but didn't say anything to contradict Alice's statement.

Now, since it is a universally acknowledged truth that a woman will happily push her friend into the arms of an interesting and attractive man, but will balk when her friend attempts to do the same to her, Bella, who had been so very bold in pursuing an intercession with Jasper on Alice's behalf only a few minutes earlier, was suddenly filled with anxiety over the prospect of enjoying some one-on-one time with Edward. "If you're sure Alice."

"Go, go," Alice said, waving her hands at Bella as she went around the table to stand next to Jasper inside of the booth.

Thus, Bella and Edward found themselves wandering through the booths a few minutes later, each sipping a warm apple cider and Pumpkin Ale, respectively.

"Have you ever been to this before?" Edward asked.

"No. It was Alice's idea."

"Seems like it's more for kids," Edward observed as a clutch of youths scurried past with paint on their faces.

"But there're arts and crafts for sale," Bella said, pointing out a booth peddling elaborate wooden sculptures. "And beer."

"And witchcraft," Edward added, as they passed a booth for a Wiccan shop.

Catching sight of the booth in question, Bella couldn't help the soft coo. She hurried over to inspect the wares, Edward a step behind.

"I didn't know you were a witch," Edward said as he watched her sort through the incense.

"All Greco-Roman historians are secretly pagans."

"And they let you near students?

"All hail the old gods," Bella said, moving to inspect a collection of rocks.

"What are you looking at?"

"According to this chart, this is good for concentrating your sexual energies." Bella held up a chunk of smoky quartz.

"Do you really think that I need any help concentrating my sexual energies?" Edward asked.

"You're right," Bella said, dropping the rock. "What you need is a stone to de-concentrate them."

"De-concentrate?"

"There doesn't seem to be a rock for that though," Bella said, inspecting the chart set out on the table.

"Can't imagine why not." Edward chuckled. "That reminds me. You still owe me a phone call."

"Oh, did I forget about that?" Bella smirked as she stepped away from the table, pausing to toss her empty cup of cider into a garbage can.

"Wait," Edward stopped her. "You _have_ been using my gift, right?"

Knowing that he was referring, of course, to the vibrator, Bella stuck out her chin defiantly. "You told me that I had to, didn't you?"

But Edward wasn't falling for it. "What setting do you use?"

"Setting?"

"One. Two. Three. You know, for the speed?"

"Oh. Two."

"You liar! There was only one setting!"

Bella blanched.

Edward stepped away, shaking his head. "This is so unfair. If you're not going to hold up your end of the bargain, I don't see why I should. Do you know how long it's been since I've masturbated?"

Hissing, Bella slapped a hand over Edward's mouth. "There're kids here!"

"No one heard me," Edward said (accurately, as they were between booths), removing Bella's hand but not dropping it. "And I can't _believe_ that you're cheating. Do you know what I've been going through?"

"I'm not cheating. And you seem just fine to me."

"Well, I'm not! I'm frustrated! And you _are_ cheating!"

"Fine!" Bella conceded. "I'm sorry. I'll do it."

"And you have to call me," Edward reminded her. "I get to listen."

"I can't believe that you're doing this to me," Bella huffed. "Do you know how juvenile this is? We're almost in our thirties, for God's sake, and you're acting like a fourteen year old."

"These are the terms of the contest. Unless you're going to admit that you've lost."

"I'll never give up!" Bella declared.

"We'll see about that," Edward replied.

A second or two passed, the two of them staring each other down.

Realizing that he was still holding her hand, Edward dropped it and turned to lead the way to the next booth, this one devoted to portraits of waterfowl.

Wondering why anyone would want to take so many pictures of ducks—and then coming up short as he caught sight of a photo of a swan that reminded him of a certain dream involving Bella—Edward cleared his throat. "So have you seen that guy again?"

"What guy?" Bella was looking at ducks and wondering if Edward was actually into them or just looking for a distraction from the awkwardness of their last exchange.

"The guy from the coffeehouse. You know. The _one._ "

Rolling her eyes at Edward's obtuseness, Bella replied. "Yeah, of course. We work together. And we take the same classes."

Edward scowled.

"What?" Bella asked, delighted to discover an opportunity to pick on Edward about something. She had the lyrics of her revisions to Jill Sobule's "Kissed a Girl" (aptly retitled "Kissed a Boy") all queued up in her head and ready for singing.

"He wants you."

Bella certainly wasn't expecting Edward to say that. "You're crazy," she scoffed. "Jacob doesn't _want_ me."

"Why do you think he agreed to make out with me?" Edward asked.

"Your stunning good looks and medical degree?" _Duh._

"He thought that he was going to get a chance to make out with you too."

"Whatever." Bella didn't want to have this argument.

But Edward wasn't done with her. "Stunning good looks, eh?" Edward smirked. "I knew that you were hot for me."

Shoving Edward's arm in mock annoyance, Bella accidentally made him spill his beer on his sneakers.

"Sorry," Bella shrugged.

"Look what you did!" Edward complained in mock annoyance.

"It was an accident," Bella pointed out.

"You spilled my drink," Edward said, repeating the obvious.

"I didn't mean it."

"You think that you can just spill someone's beer and there won't be any repercussions."

"I'll buy you a new one," Bella said.

"Not good enough."

Bella huffed. "You'll get over it."

"What about my sneakers?"

"Wash them."

"These are my super fancy, favorite running sneakers. I can't just _wash_ them."

"They're already covered in mud. What difference does a little beer make?"

Edward gaped at Bella. "It makes a big difference."

"How?"

"The molecular structure of alcohol is scientifically proven to be detrimental to the fabric of sneakers. Everyone knows that."

"I bet you're not even that fast," Bella mocked.

"Excuse me." Edward's eyes narrowed.

"You heard me."

Edward opened his mouth to reply, but it was too late.

Bella had sprinted away from the booth, and was weaving her way through the crowd, on her way to the outbuildings.

Tossing his cup in a garbage can, Edward darted after her. He'd almost caught up when she ducked through the door of the closest building, a barn.

Bella found herself surrounded by darkness. Blinking as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she reached out and began to feel her way through the space. It was a hay maze, with stacked bales forming narrow corridors.

Bella yelped as Edward's fingers slid across her wrist, but she managed to pull away. Dashing down one of the corridors, she only just escaped Edward's clutches by throwing herself over a bale, Edward grunting as he tripped, slamming into the stack. On the other side of the hay bale, Bella took off again, deeper into the maze.

A scarecrow-making contest having attracted the attention of most of the children, the maze was temporarily free of small bodies that might have been trampled by the rough-housing of adults who really ought to have known better. Thus, Bella and Edward encountered no one as they continued their little game of hide-and-seek in the darkened barn.

Just when Edward thought he had her, she twisted out of his grasp again, laughing and panting with the exertion of the chase.

But Bella was a second too late as she started to shimmy through a small hole in the hay bales.

"Not so fast," Edward panted, grabbing onto an ankle and tugging.

Bella shook her foot free and managed to squirm the rest of the way through the opening. Determining that Edward was too large to follow, Bella started climbing.

Up she went—no doubt breaking some rule about not climbing on the bales, but not caring about flouting the regulations if it meant that she kept the upper hand.

She had just made it to the top, however, when she felt a hand close over hers. Letting out a startled cry, Bella pulled away, and teetered for a second on the edge of the bale, only for Edward to pull her the rest of the way up.

Having climbed up the other side of the hay bales, Edward tugged Bella to her feet.

"Got you," he chuckled, his hands on her waist.

If his words were meant only in jest, there was nevertheless a memory lurking in Edward's head of a certain dream he'd had, about chasing a certain brown-haired woman through the trees, and he couldn't help recalling, too, just how much he'd wanted to catch her and what he'd wanted to do with her when he did.

For Bella's part, the pure pleasure of evading Edward's grasp had morphed into something else—into a sudden desire to know just what he would do with her now that he had her.

Visions filled Bella's brain.

She imagined him kissing her again. Tugging her down into the hay with him.

Desperate for some space, Bella pulled away, and was grateful—and yet not grateful, and then confused because of that—that Edward let go of her.

"It's so quiet," she said, looking around. There was a little more light up here, filtering through windows in the roof.

"All of the kids must have tired themselves out," Edward said, speculating about why there were no children in the maze. "I can see why they like running around in here." He watched Bella as she peered down at the maze from their lofty perch.

"It's not fair," Bella complained. "They get to do stuff like this all of the time."

"I haven't had this much fun in—I can't remember how long."

Watching Bella, he saw her speculative glance.

Realizing what she had in mind, Edward was suddenly filled with an ominous feeling. "Don't you dare—" he started to warn her.

But it was already too late. Bella's body collided with his. They were sailing through the air and down onto the bales below, which was really only a few feet, but enough of a fall for Edward to feel yet another burst of adrenaline.

When they landed, Edward's arms curled around Bella's body instinctively.

Wanting to regain the upper hand, he held on as she tried to pull back. "You're not going anywhere," he said, rolling so that she was pinned beneath him.

They could barely make out each other's faces in the dim light. But Edward didn't really need to be able to see her in order to kiss her.

When he knocked into her glasses, he pulled back only long enough to tug them off of her face, dropping them to one side of her head as he twined his fingers with hers.

"Edward," Bella began, but he cut her off, pressing his lips to hers.

This time, he didn't have to wait for her to begin kissing him back. This time, her tongue slipped inside of his mouth.

And he couldn't help groaning softly when, a few moments later, her legs parted enough for him to slide a leg between them.

"Do you like that?" Edward asked a while later, pulling away.

He dipped down to nip at her neck, causing her to cry out. This was more like the Edward from Bella's fantasies. Rougher. Harder.

And yet he was still so fucking gentle, as he started rocking his hips against hers so slowly.

"You're not allowed to get off," she reminded him, closing her eyes as the heat began building in her core.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he growled, moving to hold her hands above her head and letting his weight fall on her, stilling his hips. "Are you really telling me that you don't like the way I feel right now?"

She _did_. She could _feel_ him and she _liked_ it.

But the spell was interrupted as the noises of children playing a game of tag suddenly sounded from several feet away.

Several stacks of hay bales lay between the children and the couple, but there was no way that Bella and Edward could continue.

Pulling away, Edward handed Bella her glasses.

"This isn't over," he whispered in her ear as he helped her down from the hay bale.

Trying to smooth her hair and brush the hay from her clothes, Bella followed Edward out of the maze, ignoring the annoyed glares of parents.

 **AN:**

" _It is one of the superstitions of mankind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue_." Voltaire, _Zaire_ 1732 - brainyquote dot com

" _Appetitus rationi pareat. Let your desires be ruled by reason_." – Cicero - quotationspage dot com

" _Your body is the church where Nature asks to be reverenced._ " – Marquis de Sade - brainyquote dot com

" _The greatest pleasures are only narrowly separated from disgust_." – Cicero – brainyquote dot com

" _Nature has not got two voices, you know, one of them condemning all day what the other commands_." – Marquis de Sade – brainyquote dot com

" _If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."_ – Cicero _If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need_

" _Her valleys are like Eden, her hills are like Lebanon, she is a paradise of pleasure and a garden of delight_." – Thomas Stretzer, _A New Description of Merryland_

" _The diligent farmer plants trees, of which he himself will never see the fruit_." – Cicero, _Tusculum Disputations_ 1.14


	18. Chapter 18

**Warning: Reference to physical and verbal child abuse in this chapter. I don't think the language in this chapter is very strong, but a censored version is posted in the alternate** _ **Corrupting Influence – Version 2**_ **.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

" _The injuries we do and those we suffer are seldom weighed in the same scales_." – Aesop, translator unknown

Chapter 18

"Alice, people normally have housewarming parties right after they've moved in," Bella pointed out as she set out the chips and dip.

"But I wanted my place to be perfect before I let anyone see it," Alice replied, rearranging the dishes on the table to make room for the drinks.

"People are supposed to give you stuff to make it perfect. That's the whole point of a housewarming party."

"Yes, but this way they can give me whatever they want to. It doesn't have to be for the apartment."

Bella eyed her friend. "Then it's just an _Alice_ party. Not a _housewarming_ party."

"There's nothing wrong with that."

Shrugging, Bella started setting out the wine, ignoring the fact that Alice rearranged everything she set out on the table at least once.

Bella had just set down the last of the napkins and silverware (Alice switching the two) when the first of the guests arrived.

Bella smiled tentatively at the newcomers, two members of Alice's staff from the boutique, but as a debate over chiffon ensued, Bella retreated to the background. As more and more guests arrived, Bella did her best to seem amicable, but couldn't resist the temptation to invent chores in the kitchen. It wasn't that Bella was averse to socialization, she just felt like the contribution of set-up and clean-up ought to absolve her of chipping in and breaking the ice when things got awkward.

Fortunately, Edward arrived soon enough. And only a fool would imagine that the way he and Bella greeted each other went unobserved by certain interested parties. Eyebrows went up, sidelong glances were had, but Edward's siblings (and Rosalie) held their tongues, not wanting to interfere in the strange experiment unfolding before their eyes.

But as the party proceeded, Emmett found that he could hold his peace no longer.

"Hey, Statler and Waldorf," Emmett chided them from the sofa, "wanna join the rest of us?"

Bella and Edward were indeed putting on a fair imitation of two stodgy old men who hung out in the balcony of _The Muppet Show_ , discreetly trading snide comments about the goings on as they observed the party from a corner, passing judgment on the other partiers as only two people bitter over their failure to fit in can really do well.

Bella tried to think of a clever comeback to Emmett's remark, but she'd already used up her quota of snarkiness quietly mocking an ascot-wearing, oblivious young man whose overtures were being blatantly rebuffed by an honest-to-God dead-ringer for Carly Simon.

"Hey Rosalie," Edward replied, "did Emmett ever tell you about the time he went skinny-dipping at La Push?"

"Seriously?" Emmett asked. "You're going to go there?"

Rosalie patted Emmett's shoulder. "Don't worry. I'm still holding onto a certain envelope for Statler and Waldorf. They start any trouble, I'll just bring it out."

Bella had forgotten about the envelope, and the confessions it contained as to she and Edward's intentions. She'd been having such a good time with Edward—the two of them taking comfort in their mutual discomfort in the party atmosphere—and now she felt a slight pang of anxiety. She wished that she'd been a little less truthful in that "confession."

"Am I ever going to get to find out what you put in there?" Rosalie asked.

Edward glanced at Bella with a smile. "Oh, I think the envelope's due to be opened soon. I can just feel it. I'm close to winning."

Chuckling uneasily, Bella edged towards the kitchen. "I'm going to see about getting some more salsa for the table."

In the kitchen, Bella was surprised to find Carlisle and Esme inspecting the wine bottles still on reserve.

"Bella!" Esme cried. "What a delight to see you!" She threw her arms around Bella for a quick hug.

"It's nice to see you, too," Bella replied cautiously, easing out of the hug. "And Carlisle." Bella had seen the two of them arrive at the party, but she had conveniently avoided greeting them. It wasn't that she held anything against them—or did she?—but it had been ten years since they'd seen each other, and Bella wasn't sure how she felt about seeing them again.

"Bella." Carlisle smiled at her. "How've you been doing? Alice said that you're getting your doctorate."

"Yeah." Bella ran a hand through her hair, nervously. "In history. I'm almost done."

"That's wonderful. I'm so proud of you," Esme said.

And Bella couldn't help feeling a stab of annoyance. It wasn't really Esme's place to take pride in anything that Bella, was it?

Of course, there was a period in Bella's life when she'd desperately wanted Esme's approval. Esme's opinion used to matter so much to Bella.

But now?

"I'm so happy that you and Alice found each other again," Esme continued. "She was so upset when you fell out of touch."

Bella smiled congenially, but she wanted to call _bullshit_. Oh, she knew that Alice "felt bad" about turning her back on Bella all of those years ago. But it wasn't easy for Bella to sympathize with the teenage version of her old friend.

Not that Esme and Carlisle knew anything about that. Bella had the foresight to realize that Alice's parents probably had no idea what had really happened.

It wasn't like Alice would have come home from school and boasted about scribbling "slut" across Bella's locker.

Then again—

Bella couldn't help wondering if Carlisle and Esme were entirely ignorant of what had happened.

It wasn't as if they would have wanted their daughter associated with the town "slut." Maybe they even told Alice to cut her off.

"What about your father, dear? How is he doing?" Esme asked.

And another shot of annoyance coursed through Bella's veins. "He's fine," Bella said, trying to keep her voice light. It was none of the Cullens' business how her father was doing, but she didn't want to cause a scene.

"How is his mobility?" Carlisle asked.

Bella thought about lying, but what was the point? "He's actually not getting around very well right now." _More like confined to a bed and only semi-lucid_. Bella hadn't been back to see him for a few weeks—trying to cram in as possible many hours in at her various jobs and struggling to finish yet another draft of her proposal—but the last time she'd called, the nurse told her that he had yet to fully recover from his last bout of pneumonia.

"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry," Esme clucked, pulling Bella in for another embrace, a longer one this time.

Bella tried not to given into the instinct to pull away.

She remembered how much she used to crave Esme's hugs. At the same time, she'd always hated how they made her feel so fucking inadequate.

"Are they thinking about doing any more surgeries?" Carlisle wanted to know after Bella disentangled herself from his wife.

"Not right now."

"But they have made some recent advancements, you know. I could—"

"He had a complication during his last surgery," Bella cut Carlisle off. "They're looking into non-invasive therapies now."

 _Who the fuck did Carlisle think he was?_ Riding in on his white horse to save the day after everything the Cullens had abandoned her?

Bella was going to take care of her father all by herself. She had a plan. She didn't need any one's help.

"Well, you let me know if you need anything," Carlisle told her.

She almost scoffed—because _come the fuck on_ —but he just looked so damn sincere.

Suddenly, Bella remembered a Saturday afternoon she'd spent at the Cullens. Alice was busy finishing up a paper, and Esme had invited her into the kitchen to bake cookies. Carlisle had sat at the counter, reading a journal. And while the cookies were baking, the three of them played a card game.

Bella and her parents never spent time together. They never played cards or baked cookies. Bella usually ate by herself. When her father was home, he mostly watched sports. He'd ask her if everything was alright every now and then, but he wasn't exactly talkative. And as for Bella's mother, well, she wasn't exactly a home-body.

Bella suddenly found herself wishing that she was anywhere but Alice's kitchen. She didn't want to stand there trying to make small talk with two people she'd once loved like parents—two people she had secretly wished _were_ her parents—two people who'd turned their backs on her.

That's right, _turned_ their backs on her. Because where were they when she needed them?

Unable to take it anymore, Bella pivoted towards the door, and was brought up short by the sight of Edward, standing in the doorway and glaring at his parents.

She didn't know what had put him in such a bad mood. Maybe he was angry at his parents for something. But she couldn't escape the suspicion that he was annoyed to find her talking to his parents. Like he was offended by their relationship—just like so many years ago, when he would complain that she was over all of the time.

Nodding adieu to Carlisle and Esme, Bella pushed past Edward and made her way to Alice's bedroom. She needed to be alone, just for a few minutes.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

It would have been difficult to pinpoint who fired the first shot. Within the first few days of Edward and Bella's initial meeting as teenagers, it was clear that they despised each other. But it would be hard to determine who or what started it all.

At the time, Bella was just thirteen and Edward was a year older. She had returned to Forks for the summer, as she had every year since her mother had first taken her away.

Edward had only arrived in the town a few weeks earlier, at which point he met his father and stepmother and step-siblings for the very first time; a whole family that he'd just found out about.

The truth was, Edward was lucky not to be going to jail. Or so he thought. His mother had come at him again, this time with a knife, and screaming such awful things. And he just lost it. He couldn't take it any fucking more. He pushed her.

When her head hit the table, Edward realized that he'd fucked up. He'd pushed her too hard. He could already see the blood.

He was going to go to jail for murdering his own mother.

So he ran.

Unbeknownst to Edward, a neighbor had called the cops, sick and tired of all of the yelling from the apartment next door. The police found Edward's mother unconscious, and the neighbor told them how "the boy"—Edward—had fled the apartment.

When the police picked Edward up for sleeping on a park bench, he was sure that he was going to jail. The police tried to question him, but he refused to talk. He was smart enough to know that that shit wasn't legal—the cops couldn't talk to him without a legal guardian present. And Edward's legal guardian—his mother—was dead because he'd killed her. If Edward was going to go to jail, then he was going to make them work for it.

A social worker was called in then, but Edward still wasn't saying a fucking word. Why should he talk? No one ever gave a fuck what he said, so why should he try now?

With Edward holding his tongue, the social worker filled him in on a few details. She explained how the neighbor had called the police. And that this neighbor had also reported that Edward's mother was screaming some pretty awful threats at Edward before the accident.

The "accident." That was what the social worker called it.

Because Edward's mother wasn't dead. She was alive and kicking and insisting on seeing Edward.

That got Edward's attention, alright.

Because _Jesus fuck_ —

He didn't want to be a murderer. But he had been consoling himself with the belief that he was finally free of her.

And now?

And now they were just going to give him back to her.

 _She would be so fucking fucking fucking pissed._

"The police asked your mother who pushed her," the social worker said, and Edward began to feel a glimmer of hope. Because maybe they were going to prosecute him for assault after all. He'd go to jail, at least juvie. And when he got out, he could run. He would just disappear and he'd never have to see his mother again.

"Do you know what she said?" the social worker asked.

Edward didn't so much as move a muscle.

"She said that you pushed her. Now, why would you push your mother, Edward?"

 _Right_. Like Edward was going to say a word.

"Did she hurt you?"

And suddenly Edward wished that he was anywhere but there. Anywhere but sitting in that room with that social worker. Wasn't it enough that he was going to go to jail? Did she have to humiliate him too?

"Your mother's admitted it."

Edward's eyes snapped to the social worker's.

He wondered if she was lying. He knew that the police were allowed to lie to suspects.

"The police asked your mother why she was threatening you, and she said that you'd eaten the last of the cereal."

 _Fucking bitch!_ It was all Edward could do to hold his temper and go on sitting there, to pretend that he wasn't seething inside.

There was no other food and he hadn't eaten in a day and he was starving. Wasn't it his mother's fucking job to feed him?

"The police asked her if she wanted to press charges, but she refused."

A roar started sounding in Edward's ears. _They were going to give him back to her. They were going to give him back to her. They were going to—_

"She said it was her job to discipline you and that if they had any doubt of that, they could check your back."

Edward closed his eyes. Because maybe if he wished hard enough, he could will himself out of existence.

"Edward, if you won't agree to a medical exam, I'm going to have to agree to one on your behalf."

And that roaring in Edward's ears became positively deafening. There was no fucking way he was going to let anyone touch him.

 _But what was the point in trying to stop them?_

Why bother fighting back? They would get what they wanted one way or another.

It wasn't enough that they were going to put him in jail. They wanted to take away his last shred of self-respect.

The social worker gave her consent for the examination. By the time the doctors finished taking photos of all of the scars—from the cigarette burns and his mother's belt—Edward was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

He still hadn't said a word.

The social worker tried one last time. "Did your mother do this to you?"

Why deny it? They knew the truth. In his imagination, the doctors were all laughing about him in the break room. _What a loser? His own mother—_

Who the hell did they think they were?

And this bitch social worker—exposing him to the eyes of strangers, all of them poking and prodding at him. Taking fucking pictures, like he was a fucking zoo exhibit.

This was it. The end. Edward's story was over.

He nodded.

But Edward's story wasn't over. Having condescended to answer one of the social worker's questions, Edward figured he might as well give her everything that she wanted. Get it over with as quickly as possible. So when she asked if he had any other family, he gave her his father's name—or at least the name of a man that he _thought_ was his father.

It took some digging, but the social worker tracked the Cullens down. Before Edward had time to process what was happening, he was being sent to live with a family he never knew existed.

None of that mattered though, because he had a loving family now, and everything was fine.

Only not.

Edward arrived in Forks thoroughly fucked up and not quite able to believe the change in his circumstances. Because it had suddenly dawned on him that he'd suffered all of those years for nothing. Why didn't the authorities step in earlier?

Edward had other questions, too. Carlisle, his father, said that he had no idea that Edward existed until the social worker contacted him. Was that true?

And how was Edward—a fucked up punk from the inner city—supposed to fit into this perfect little family in this perfect little town?

How long would it take the Cullens to figure out that he didn't belong and send him away?

Edward took some comfort in the fact that they couldn't make him go back to his mother, at least not any time soon. She had changed her story about Edward's scars; she was now saying that Edward got them from rough-housing with his friends. With Edward refusing to cooperate, the DA had difficulty pressing charges. In the end, his mother got a sentence for negligence.

Edward knew that he should probably feel some sort of vindication seeing his mother go to jail. Strangely, he didn't feel anything at all.

The therapist said that it was natural for Edward to feel confused about everything. Edward wasn't confused. He just didn't care.

The therapy was Carlisle's idea, not Edward's. Edward agreed to go only because he didn't think that he had the option of refusing.

After two months and no progress, the shrink announced that Edward had problems making an emotional connection, whatever the fuck that meant. By the time that summer rolled around, Edward had stopped talking to the shrink altogether. He'd go to his appointments and sit in silence for an hour.

And then Bella came to town.

Edward already knew that Alice was an outsider. His step-sister didn't seem to have any close friends.

Edward could understand that. Forks High was inundated by zombie sheep. They were welcoming enough to Edward at first—but he wasn't having it. They were mindless drones, and Alice was the only one who seemed to notice.

Even Forks had bad seeds, kids from the so-called wrong side of the tracks or jock wannabes who thought that they were hard. They all tried to cozy up to Edward, like getting the inner city punk on their side would be proof positive of their gangsta status. Edward wasn't interested. At all. And he made sure that everyone got the message loud and clear.

A few ladies seemed to think that his reputation made him all the more alluring, and he wasn't quite as harsh towards them, but only because he was a fucking pussy (he could admit that to himself), and still a little terrified of the opposite sex after all of the shit his mother had put him through.

Though he never would have admitted it, Edward found it somewhat comforting to find that his step-sister was a loner like him. He wasn't exactly ready to get them matching friendship bracelets, but he was slowly warming up to her.

But then school let out for summer. And Alice changed. It was like someone flipped a switch.

It was all because Bella came to town.

Not that Bella was any more popular than Alice. If anything, she was even more of a social pariah. Being the daughter of the Chief, everyone seemed to assume that she was a narc. She wasn't exactly fashion-forward either, always going around in baggy sweatshirts and old jeans, in the dead of summer, with her hair a mess. Edward wasn't the one who gave Bella her nickname. "Beast" was an obvious go-to for a girl named _Bella_ who didn't quite live up to the standard of _Belle_ from the Disney movie. But he couldn't deny that it seemed to fit.

Because who was this bitch to just roll into town and ruin everything?

It wasn't just his sister fawning all over Bella, it was his entire family. They were practically in love with the girl. It was _Bella this—_ and _Bella that—_ , all of the time, like she walked on fucking water.

Who the hell was this stranger to show up and get all of the love and affection that was rightfully Edward's? Never mind that Edward spent nine-tenths of his time pushing his family away. They were _his_ , goddammit.

This bitch was an interloper. Her friendship with his so-called sister didn't give Bella any special privileges so far as Edward was concerned. He was going to treat her the same way he treated everyone.

There was another, more fundamental problem when it came to Bella. It was subtle. An instinctual recognition of something not quite right. It was enough to set off Edward's alarm bells, even though he didn't understand why.

He recognized something in Bella. Something broken. The same damn thing that was broken in him.

He couldn't have that. He couldn't sit around and watch this broken thing laughing and joking with his family, like she fit in when he didn't. It was like looking in the mirror, but not. And it was like a knife to the chest, seeing this person who was so very like him succeeding where he was failing. Getting what he wanted but couldn't have.

She made him anxious, too. He didn't know just why that was, but a savvier fellow would've known that it was because he was afraid that she would see through all of his carefully erected walls. Easy as it was for him to see through her, it only made sense that she'd have the same ability when it came to him. But the thought of having someone see him for what he really was turned Edward's stomach. It was a little too much like being back in that hospital, with all of those fucking doctors poking at him and taking pictures, _seeing_ him. Edward didn't want to be seen.

Most of all, Edward feared that sooner or later someone would figure it out. Would recognize the resemblance between the two of them. Then it wouldn't just be Bella seeingEdward for what he was, it would be everyone.

In attempting to diagnose the source of the problem, though, it would be unfair to blame everything on Edward. Bella was by no means eager to welcome Edward into her surrogate family. She'd secretly dreamed of becoming a Cullen for years. Not that her father was cruel—but he wasn't especially loving. And her mother—well, she was a disaster. To Bella, the Cullens were everything.

But here was this interloper. This long-lost son. This stranger.

To Bella, Edward was a Masen, not a real Cullen.

To Edward, Bella was an even bigger outsider than he was.

Such are the vagaries of human emotions that a person can desperately crave the very thing that he or she seems to reject. Edward and Bella desperately craved the affection of the Cullens at the same time that they recoiled from it. They even despised the Cullens a little for offering that affection so freely, so easily, like it meant nothing.

Edward and Bella hated each other not only for the ease with which they inserted themselves into the Cullen clan, but for their obvious discomfort with the same, for rejecting that which they had been given. Because who the fuck was Bella to turn down the love that Edward wanted so badly? And who the fuck was Edward to shit on the family Bella longed for?

It didn't make sense. It was completely fucked up. But it was the way it was.

So it wasn't clear who fired the first shot. They probably would have blamed each other. But who knows—they might have taken some pride in claiming the credit. Because who cares if you started the fight if that means that you aren't the one who took the first hit?

Unfortunately, as far as Edward's shrink was concerned, Edward's failure to get along with Bella just confirmed Edward's inability to make an emotional connection.

Things only got worse when Bella moved to Forks to live with her father year round.

By then, Edward was going to therapy once a week. He'd just go to his shrink's office once a week and sit, not saying a word. Eventually, Carlisle got him another therapist. But it was no good. Edward went through shrink after shrink, each one in turn giving up, because if Edward wasn't going to make an effort then they said that there was nothing that they could do for him.

On the surface, Edward seemed to be doing fine. He was a bit skittish—but who could blame him? Yet he was getting good grades for the first time in his life. He had even managed to make a few acquaintances that occasionally passed as friends.

But Carlisle was afraid that Edward was just shoving all of it down—all of his problems—and that one day he'd blow. So Carlisle made Edward an offer: A six month commitment to genuine therapy and Edward would be able to get a car. Edward had to make a real commitment, though. He couldn't just blow his therapist off again.

Intellectually, Carlisle knew it was a mistake. You can't _make_ a person get help; he has to want it for himself.

But it seemed to work. Edward accepted the offer and he appeared to be trying.

Of course, Edward was just running a con. He would spin his therapist some bullshit about self-worth and how hard it was trying to fit in all of the time. Every once in a while, Edward would make an effort to make it look like the therapy was working—play a football game with Emmett, help Alice with her homework, bake cookies with Esme. His fooled his family. He fooled everyone.

Everyone, that is, except Bella. "How's the therapy going?" she'd ask him, laughing, right in the middle of the fucking parking lot at school, too softly for anyone else to hear, but still. Who the fuck mocks someone for trying to get help? "You're the one who needs help," Edward would snap—which was true, it was obvious that she needed therapy—but she would just laugh even harder. "You might have pulled the wool over everyone else's eyes," she'd say, "but I see you for what you are."

Edward lived in terror that Bella would tell his parents the truth.

He told himself that there was no reason that they'd take her word over his, but Edward had a good reason for believing that they would do just that. She was practically a second daughter.

Then there was the fear that Bella would spread a rumor about him seeing a shrink around school. He had to shut that shit down. So yeah, he spread some rumors of his own. It probably would have made more sense to just back off—call a ceasefire—but Edward wasn't thinking rationally. People believed him, too. After all, his step-sister was Bella's best friend. Who better to know some dirt?

Whenever it occurred to Edward that his efforts might actually be hurting his step-sister—that she might be suffering by association with Bella—he rationalized his efforts by telling himself that Alice had made her bed when she chose Bella over him (because that was how he saw it, nonsensical as it may sound).

Not that Edward was completely heartless. He stepped in whenever it looked like Bella's bad reputation might be affecting his step-sister. "Alice just feels sorry for her," he'd say.

Meanwhile, the therapy appeared to be working. The therapist said that Edward was making real progress.

Which was just proof, in Edward's opinion, that shrinks weren't worth the paper on which their college degrees were printed, because if a sixteen year old could fool a so-called _physician_ , then something was seriously out of whack.

But Edward got his seal of approval and he got his car.

Consequently, Edward never really gotten the help he needed.

All was not lost, however, when it came to healing the divide. For a brief moment during the late spring and early summer of Bella's sixteenth year—Edward was almost seventeen—they were given an opportunity to mend fences. They might have even become friends.

It so happened that Edward and Bella secretly shared a fondness for First Beach, particularly first thing in the morning, when it was deserted.

Edward would run on the beach before school. Running on sand was much harder than running on pavement or a trail. Every slip of his feet was a kind of ' _Fuck you._ ' In fact, Edward's life was pretty much a giant ' _Fuck you_.' Every day, every time someone got in his face, every time he remembered his mother, it was like slipping in the sand. It made Edward try even harder. He'd force himself to put one foot in front of the other.

He'd run until he was panting and dripping with sweat. With no one around, he didn't have to worry about anyone seeing his scars. So he would pull off his shirt and plunge into the water to cool off.

Bella wasn't fond of running. She loved the ocean, though. She loved the melancholy nature of the contrast between grey sea and grey sky. She loved the quiet, the loneliness, arming her—as it did—for the vulgar trials of school (and the less trying task of keeping up with the whims of a flighty Alice). She loved the surge and the froth. The wild, uncaged energy. She'd run full tilt into the water, and dive into the wave, and come up sputtering and teeth chattering. She didn't mind freezing. She even loved it a little, the numbing sensation, like all of her cares drifting away. Bella would lay back and float, closing her eyes and rocking back and forth, back and forth.

"Hey!" An angry voice broke through Bella's reverie, one morning as she floated. "What are you doing here?"

She opened her eyes to confront the intruder, only to find herself facing one Edward Masen—Edward _Cullen_.

"Screw you!" Bella replied instinctively, arms curling protectively around her torso. Normally she would have worn a t-shirt over her bathing suit. But she wasn't expecting anyone to show up.

"You need to go!" Edward declared.

Bella noticed that he wasn't wearing a t-shirt either. And he _always_ wore one, even when they went up to the pool up in Port Angeles.

"I was here first!" Bella announced.

"Bullshit," Edward snapped, even though her statement was in a sense true, Bella _had_ gotten into the water first, while Edward was still running. "I come here every morning," he said.

" _I_ 've never seen you."

"Just because you didn't see me, doesn't mean that I wasn't here."

They glared at each other.

"Are you going to get out of the water?" Bella asked.

"You first."

They glared at each other some more.

This was no mere boundary dispute. Neither would cede their ground because turning to go meant exposing themselves in ways that they were loath to do. Edward never let anyone see his scars. Ever. Not even Carlisle. And as for Bella, well, there was a reason she wore such baggy clothing. The thought of anyone running their eyes over her form—it made her skin crawl.

Alas, their mutual refusal to seek the shore meant that left them to the merciless chill of the icy waters. Both had submerged themselves up to their necks. And they watched each other silently, waiting for one of them to crack.

Bella, having been in the water the longest, was suffering dearly. Her lips were already turning blue.

"Your teeth are chattering," Edward pointed out.

"So are yours."

She was right. Normally, Edward would've been swimming by now, and that would've kept him warm. But just sitting in the water like this had him struggling to adjust to the sudden temperature change. In fact, Bella's custom of swimming (and not running) every morning meant that she was actually much more accustomed to the cold than him. "I like it," Edward lied.

"So do I," Bella (likewise) lied.

And so they stayed in the water, glaring at each other.

"Just get the fuck out already," Bella said (or tried to say, the shivering made it difficult).

"You first."

"Why me?"

Edward smirked. "Didn't you say that you were here first? So you get out first."

As much as Bella wanted to argue the logic of that, she couldn't help but admit that he had a point. Moreover, she was far too cold to hold her ground much longer.

She held out for another minute, but then she had no choice but to give up.

As she started creeping to shore, Bella issued a warning. "Don't look!" She instantly regretted her words, knowing that they gave her away.

"As if," Edward barked a step or two behind her, because he was only too happy to be following her in, almost as cold as she was.

Bella stumbled out of the surf and towards her towel, trying to hurry. But the cold slowed her movements. She shakily wrapped her towel around herself. If anything, she was colder now that she'd left the water than she'd been in the surf, the cool air like ice on her wet skin.

Peeking over the top of her towel, Bella spied Edward crouching over his things, his back towards her. She saw the scars.

Bella looked away quickly, not wanting to see any more. It was none of her business. And she didn't want confirmation for something she'd already expected.

But Edward was finding it just as difficult to maneuver as Bella, the cold slowing him down. He gave up on trying to pull on his t-shirt. Instead, he wrapped himself in his towel and turned to face Bella, realizing too late that he'd turned his back on her.

Noticing his gaze, Bella glared at him again. "Why didn't you see my things?"

"Maybe because I didn't think anyone would be stupid to come out here this early in the morning."

"You're here."

"That's different."

Bella rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

"So long as you don't come back."

"You can't tell me what to do."

Edward rolled _his_ eyes. "Gonna get daddy to arrest me?"

"Maybe," Bella shrugged.

"Look, I'm gonna keep coming here. You can't stop me."

"And you can't stop _me._ "

"Whatever," Edward said, conceding without conceding.

"Yeah, _whatever_ ," Bella snapped. Grabbing her things, she began trudging her way towards her truck.

The next morning, Bella drove around a bit, looking for Edward's car. She wasn't too surprised when she found it parked at the trail head.

Well, Edward was in for a disappointment if he thought that he could keep Bella away.

Bella drove back to her normal spot and parked. When she reached the sand, Bella felt a flicker of hesitation.

Normally, she'd take off her t-shirt when swimming alone. She didn't like the way the wet fabric dragged against the skin. And it actually made her colder.

But Bella really really really didn't want Edward to catch a glimpse of her in just her bathing suit. Bella didn't like the way that she looked. She secretly wished that she had Alice's figure—a rail thin frame with almost no curves. Bella didn't like the prominence of her breasts or the sway of her backside. She had heard far too many filthy comments from her mother's "boyfriends" over the years, a few of their more lewd remarks addressed to the way Bella was developing.

And Bella had developed significantly since then.

Plagued by unhappy memories, Bella started off for the water, t-shirt firmly in place.

But she was back out of the water a second after she'd entered, pulling the t-shirt over her head and throwing it on the ground.

 _Fuck Edward Masen!_ He could just stay the fuck away from her.

Returning to the water, sans t-shirt, Bella tried to pretend that she was all alone on the beach. For all she knew, Edward wouldn't show. After all, the two of them had managed to avoid each other for quite some time.

What was more, Edward could very well have decided to skip his morning swim altogether. Or maybe he had decided to go to a different part of the beach.

Telling herself that Edward wasn't worth her energy, Bella tried to relax.

But it wasn't working. She couldn't help glancing at the sand every now and then, watching and waiting for Edward to show his face.

So Bella had a full view of Edward as he appeared out of the distance, ducking around a rocky outcropping and heading down the beach. She watched as he finished his run, coming to a stop by the edge of the water and dropping his backpack on the sand. Covertly, she spied as he tried to catch his breath, his hands on his knees, and she watched as he pulled off his shoes and socks. She watched the way he fiddled with the hem of his t-shirt, obviously trying to decide whether or not to pull it off. Following his line of vision, she realized that he was staring down at her t-shirt, thrown so casually on the sand. A moment later, he pulled his t-shirt off and threw it down on the sand too.

As he turned to start his sprint towards the water, Bella turned away, feigning disinterest.

And Edward ignored her in return.

They didn't speak. They avoided eye contact. They each went about their business, pretending as if they were completely alone, while in fact they were painfully aware of the other's presence.

They went on in this fashion for days.

Bella always left the water first, darting for her clothes and dressing as quickly as possible, choosing to believe that Edward wasn't watching.

He was, though. Not that it meant anything. It was only fair—she got to watch him before he got into the water. He was only replaying the favor. He certainly didn't give a fuck about Bella. Or her curves.

Not that she looked bad, not by a long shot.

But it wasn't any business of his.

And he wasn't stupid. There was a very good reason that a girl that pretty would choose to hide her body. Some scars weren't visible.

Two weeks passed, with Edward and Bella never once speaking and both pretending not to know that the other was even there.

Then, one day, as Bella was leaving the water, she was brought up short by the sight of a seabird standing on her towel.

Another person might not have been bothered by this. Another person probably would've just shooed the bird away.

But Bella didn't like birds. She had been attacked by a bird when she was four years old, and she'd never gotten over it.

"Go away," she cried, her voice an anxious order. Waving her hands, she tried to scare the bird into fleeing.

It simply ignored her.

Bending, Bella picked up some sand and she threw it at the bird, quickly crouching with her hands over her head in case it attacked.

Nothing.

Watching all of this unfold, Edward wasn't quite sure what was going on. The bird was invisible from his vantage point. So when Bella crouched down in the water, it looked like something was attacking Bella.

"What the fuck?" he demanded, charging out of the water.

"It won't move," Bella explained, still crouching as she watched the bird.

"It's just a fucking bird," Edward pointed out, having realized the problem.

"Birds attack people!" Bella exclaimed.

Unimpressed, Edward nevertheless saw that Bella wasn't going to proceed unless someone intervened on her behalf. Shaking his head at her melodramatics, he took it upon himself to try and shoo the bird away.

"Go on," Edward said to the avian interloper. "Get out of here."

But to Edward's surprise, the bird turned to face him, its wings opening as it squawked, looking for all the world like it was in fact going to attack.

Edward stumbled back, cursing.

"Told you," Bella said unhelpfully.

Edward narrowed his eyes at the bird. "What the fuck is its problem?"

"How should I know?"

"You got something over there that the bird wants?"

"Like what?" Bella asked.

"I don't know. Food?"

"No."

Keeping his eyes on the bird, Edward crossed over to his backpack. He pulled on his t-shirt and—in a moment of rare generosity—threw his towel to Bella.

As much as Bella didn't want to accept the towel—the _jerk_ —she was freezing. Her teeth were chattering, and she was getting progressively colder.

Surrendering to the pressure of circumstances, Bella wrapped the towel around her frame.

"Throw your backpack at it," she suggested (her chattering teeth garbling the message a bit).

"You think?"

"I can't just stand here in your towel all day."

Accepting the wisdom of her statement, Edward picked up the backpack and returned to her side. "It's watching us."

"It's global warming."

Edward looked at her.

"It's true," she said. "Climate change has fucked up all of the birds' brains and they're going to kill us off, one by one."

"Are you fucking crazy?"

"Haven't you seen _The Birds_? It's based on a true story. It fucking happened."

Shaking his head, Edward looked back at the bird. "Get ready."

Bella held her breath, cold and anxious. And when, on the count of three, Edward threw the bag at the bird, Bella was surprised to find Edward's arm blocking her body from a potential bird attack (but not touching her) as the two of them crouched, waiting.

Instead of attacking, the bird flew off, squawking in anger.

Cautiously, Edward rose to his feet, Bella behind him. A beat later, she darted for her things, quickly exchanging her towel for his.

"Thanks," she said, not looking at him as she returned his towel, her clothes clutched to her chest as she turned to go back to her truck.

"Whatever," the gallant hero replied.

Strange as this incident was, it was enough to establish a tentative truce between the two. They even went so far as to exchange a few words here and there, commenting once or twice on the weather, and a few times on Alice's antics.

Had they been asked, they would have denied it vehemently, but the fact is, they began to look forward to seeing each other. Or rather, they began to look forward to the newfound company, however unwelcome. It was somewhat comforting to find that they weren't all alone, for once.

Most significantly, neither had resumed wearing the dreaded t-shirt. They respected each other's privacy enough to keep their eyes to themselves.

Unfortunately, it was bound to come to an end.

One afternoon, Edward happened to stop at the gas station in town at the very moment that Lauren Mallory and her crew were passing through.

Now, Lauren was among that cadre of fresh young things who considered Edward a catch. There was just something about him that made him seem irresistible. No doubt it was his unfriendliness. His obvious disinclination to socialize made him seem all the more delectable. He would be invited to parties, because (knowing something of his past as an "urban youth") people thought that he lent a little street cred to their soires. Edward accepted more of these invitations than he would have preferred, knowing that his parents would be pleased at this evidence (however meager) of a social life. To the despair of many a fine young lass, Edward would spend most of his time at these parties drinking alone in a corner. Every once in a while, Lauren or Gianna or some other girl would sneak up next to him and try to start a conversation, slip a hand on his knee or around his neck. If they were lucky, they'd get a kiss. And after a while, they realized that a drunk Edward was a friendlier Edward, so they would go out of their way to supply him with drinks. Pursuing this strategy, Lauren had managed to work her way up to a few heavy petting sessions with Edward. But her progress had stalled, her willingness to pull off her top and to let Edward feel her up being unreciprocated, Edward pulling her hands away whenever she tried to slip her hands under his shirt. Their last make-out session ended in a huff, with Edward walking out when Lauren tried to pull his shirt off.

Edward had pretty much ceased all contact with Lauren after the t-shirt incident. So, seeing him at the gas station one afternoon, Lauren decided that it was her lucky day.

Putting on her most coquettish smile, she strolled over. "Haven't seen you for a while," she said, leaning up against the gas pump.

Edward glanced at her and then away, fiddling with the pump. "Been busy."

Lauren sighed. "I know, right. Summer's always just so jam-packed. I never know if I'm coming or going."

He didn't reply.

"So the girls and I are headed to Port Angeles, today. Wanna come?" Lauren asked.

Edward scratched his head. "I kind of have stuff to do."

"Oh yeah, of course. I just meant if you were free or whatever." Lauren waited. "Okay, see you around then."

Disappointed, Lauren headed back into the convenience store, ignoring the cackles that met her, Gianna and the rest of her so-called friends having taken a little too much pleasure in watching Lauren crash and burn.

A minute later, Edward headed inside, too, annoyed because he didn't want another run-in with Lauren. But he was out of defroster.

Rushing, Edward was happy to reach the register without incident, only to hear someone address him.

"Hey."

Edward turned and saw Bella right behind him in line, a container of oil in her hands.

And just over her shoulder, Edward could see Lauren and Gianna and Makenna and Emily and Leah—the whole damn clique—silently observing, just waiting to report back to the school about everything they saw and heard.

And God forbid Bella should slip and say something about the scars—the scars he knew that she'd seen.

 _Fuck that._

Sneering down at Bella, he scoffed. "What the fuck are you doing talking to me?"

And turning, he paid the cashier, telling her to keep the change as hurried out of the store as fast as he could.

Running from Lauren. Running from Bella. Wanting to get as far away from both of them as possible.

As for Bella, she had no idea that Forks High's reigning bitches had witnessed the entire exchange from the back of the shop. She stood there, her mouth hanging open, watching Edward's back as he retreated.

"Who the hell do you think you are, talking to Edward?" a voice asked.

Spinning, Bella saw Lauren, standing with her hands on her hips a few feet away.

"Do you honestly think that you're good enough to speak to Edward Cullen?" Lauren asked.

Bella blinked. _Was this bitch serious?_

Seriously, who the fuck did Lauren think she was?

Because, come the fuck on.

But then, it was like someone pushed a button, and Bella suddenly realized that she'd just been given a beautiful opportunity. It was like the universe was handing her a gift on a silver fucking platter.

Bella smiled. "Actually, I know Edward very well."

Lauren and her fellow bitches cackled at that.

"I doubt that," Lauren said.

"We go swimming almost every morning together."

"Bullshit."

"Come see for yourself. He'll be there tomorrow. Six o'clock. First Beach. But don't be too early. Edward will turn around and go home if he thinks that anyone's already there. He likes to be the first one in the water. It's like a thing."

Turning back to the register, Bella handed her credit card to the cashier.

"I don't believe you," Lauren said.

"I told you, come see for yourself."

"Maybe I will."

Shrugging, Bella grabbed her credit card and fled—her work done.

Meanwhile, Edward was racking his brain for a way to fix the problem he'd created.

He knew that he'd fucked up. He should have just greeted Bella and gone on his way. She was friends with his sister, after all. It was to be expected that they'd be cordial to each other.

But Bella had seen too much. Edward didn't want her anywhere near Lauren. It was very important to him that his worlds remain separate.

And now he knew that Bella was pissed, because she wasn't there. She should have been in the water, waiting for him, but she was nowhere in sight.

Annoyed and a little uncomfortable with the fact that he was annoyed—because why should he care if Bella got her nose out of whack?—Edward pulled off his t-shirt and dived into the waves.

The cold surf helped relieve some of his anxiety. But he still felt like a dick. He was even toying with the idea of apologizing.

That would be a first. He and Bella _never_ apologized to each other, even when Alice was begging them to bury the hatchet, or when Carlisle and Esme was cautiously suggesting that they might have carried things a little too far.

This time, though, maybe Edward would say that he was sorry.

He had just about decided to go through with this plan when he saw them. Lauren and Gianna and Makenna and Emily and Leah. All of them stripped down to their bikinis, and all of them heading down to the water. Heading towards him.

Where he treaded water, sans t-shirt, his torso bare and scars on full display.

Edward would have given anything right then to be wearing that damn t-shirt.

He stayed in the water as long as he could, long after the ladies had returned to the sand.

He stayed until he was so fucking numb that he was worried that he might actually be coming down with hypothermia.

At last, when he couldn't take it anymore, he forced himself to go ashore.

And they watched him the entire way, their eyes running over his skin, taking in the evidence of his past.

Edward wanted to snarl at them, tell them to keep their fucking eyes to themselves.

But he didn't want to give himself away. Didn't want them to know that he cared.

Bella was bad enough. But she at least understood.

Or so he thought.

Later, that afternoon, Edward was at home, playing a stupid video game with Emmett (mostly because it would make his parents happy), when Bella happened to pass through the living.

"Enjoy your swim this morning?" she asked, laughing as she skipped by.

And all at once, Edward saw the truth: Lauren didn't just stumble onto First Beach by accident. Bella had told Lauren about his swim. Bella had betrayed him.

Edward avoided First Beach after that. He stuck to trail-running in the woods.

He began skipping out on parties, too, hesitant about seeing Lauren and the others again. Unwilling to face their ridicule. As far as he knew, they had kept their mouths shut, but he was worried about testing it.

Finally, he decided to just get it over with. If they were going to humiliate him, at least he wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.

Hell—he could even start changing with the rest of the guys in the main locker room.

Invited to Tyler's for beers, Edward wasn't surprised when he quickly found himself cornered by Lauren.

"Wanna go upstairs?" she asked, twirling a piece of hair like an idiot.

"Nope."

"Oh come on. I'll make it worth your while."

Edward was sober enough to know that she was probably setting him up, but drunk enough to figure that he might as well go for it.

"Is it because of your scars?" she asked once they were alone in Tyler's bedroom. Crawling up behind him where he was sitting on the bed, she began to massage his shoulders (which tensed at the word _scars_ ). "Because you know that I don't care about them."

Edward snorted.

"Really," she said. "I think they're sexy."

 _Sexy?_

Sexy.

 _What the fuck was wrong with her?_

Couldn't she tell how he'd gotten them?

"Prove it," he said, because _Who the hell thinks scars like that are sexy?_

She began nibbling on Edward's ear and he pulled away.

"You don't like that?" she asked.

He shrugged.

"You want something else?" Her hand slid to his crotch.

He pushed her hand away.

When Lauren moved off of the bed and kneeled in front of Edward, he almost laughed in her face. Was she really going to give him a blow job?

She was.

Which was just so very fucked up. So fucked up that he could hardly handle it.

And when, afterwards, she asked him if he wanted to reciprocate, Edward just stared at her for a minute before getting up and walking out.

Which was probably a shitty thing to do. But such is life.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Eleven years later, Edward found himself standing in his step-sister's kitchen, watching his stepmother embrace Bella. And it was all he could do to quell the surge of jealousy.

He'd always been envious of his parents' feelings towards Bella.

But now he was envious of Bella's affection for his parents.

Not that he wanted Bella to look at him the way she had clearly always looked at them—it was obvious that she saw them as surrogate parents—but because Edward envied the familiarity and comfort that his parents seemed to enjoy with Bella. He wanted her to feel that way with him.

Except that he was also watching when Esme moved to embrace Bella. He saw the way Bella stiffened in Esme's arms.

And it set off an irrational wave of annoyance in Edward's chest. The same annoyance that Edward used to feel when he would see Bella rejecting one of Esme's overtures, back when they were teenagers.

Couldn't Bella tell how much Esme just wanted to love her? Didn't Bella realize how much she was hurting Esme?

Edward hated seeing the pain on Esme's face whenever Bella would pull away from her. It was the same expression that Edward saw whenever _he_ would pull away from Esme. And as much as he hated to see it, he couldn't stop himself from pulling away.

But rather than blame himself, he blamed Bella. Because she ought to have known better.

Seeing his parents at Alice's party was something of a surprise. He didn't know that they were going to be there. It was the first time that he'd seen them since that disastrous weekend he'd introduced them to Tanya—the same weekend that his father had told Edward that his real mother, Victoria, was dead.

Edward wasn't really ready to face them again, not yet.

So he was glaring when Bella turned and caught his eye.

Edward knew that she was upset when she fled the kitchen, but he wasn't sure how he felt about her obvious distress. Reverting to his teenaged self, Edward almost felt as if Bella deserved to be upset. She'd hurt Esme. On the other hand, he couldn't help wanting to comfort her.

After a brief word to his parents—during which he stuck to the basics ( _I'm fine; Work's fine_ )—Edward went in search of Bella.

He didn't have much trouble finding her. There wasn't really anywhere to hide in Alice's apartment.

She was sitting in Alice's bedroom, clearly enjoying a moment's solitude.

"You okay?" Edward asked.

"Yeah, of course," Bella said, putting her hands to her cheeks.

She wasn't quite sure why she'd let herself get so worked up. What was done was done. There was no going back.

Bella could hear Jasper taking song requests in the living room. It sounded like they were going to play karaoke.

The mattress dipped as Edward sat down next to her.

But he didn't speak. To Bella's surprise, the two of them sat there in silence for a few minutes. And it wasn't awkward.

"The thing about them," Edward said at last. "The thing about Esme and my dad, it's just hard to be around them sometimes."

When Bella didn't reply, Edward continued. "Not that they aren't nice. They're just fine." He paused again. "Actually, maybe that's the problem. They're _too_ nice. All of the time. So fucking nice. And you ask yourself, what's wrong with me that I can't just enjoy it. Can't just accept what they're giving me and be happy."

There was another minute of silence. And just when Edward decided that Bella wasn't going to say anything after all, she agreed. "Yeah, it's like that."

 **AN: Revelations in the next chapter, I promise.**


	19. Chapter 19

**Warning: Reference to attempted rape in this chapter. It's not graphic but a censored version is posted in the alternate story on Fanfiction.**

 **And I know that I promised that the philosophizing was over and done with, but a certain dead Roman had more stuff to say.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

' _Like a rosy apple on a high branch is the maiden; the pickers have forgotten her.' —_ Sappho, translator unknown

Chapter 19

Perhaps it was the pattern of the clouds crossing over the moon. Or perhaps it was the hint of the rain in the air. Or some secret portent in the alignment of the stars.

Whatever the explanation, something had obviously changed.

After much pleading, Edward had convinced Bella to attend a charity exhibition organized to raise money for the pediatric wing of his hospital. Edward had excused his request to her, explaining that her company was necessary to stave off the tedium of an event that he was required to attend. But the truth was, Edward's attendance wasn't mandatory. He _wanted_ to go. And he wanted Bella on his arm.

Bella had accepted, and had even gone so far as to accept the gift of a particularly becoming frock from Alice, just the thing to accentuate Bella's best attributes.

Edward had offered to pick Bella up, but she had insisted on making her own way to the gallery, not wanting Edward to go out of his way. So Edward wasn't prepared for the sight that met his eyes as he came around a corner of the gallery and found Bella. He had been looking for her for several minutes, having received her text saying that she had arrived, and had almost decided to give her a call, because she wasn't in the main part of the party.

The wing looked deserted, and Edward didn't think that Bella would be interested in any of the piece on display here—all modern works, not at all in keeping with Bella's Classical tastes—but to Edward's surprise, she was there alright, holding audience with a veritable copy of Bernini's _Daphne and Apollo_.

At first, the sculpture didn't seem to make any sense in that wing, surrounded as it was by the abstract and surreal. The realism of Apollo's features, the horror on Daphne's face as she struggled to escape—it should have been jarring against the avant-garde nature of the surrounding sculptures, except that the closest pieces were abstract approximations of shrubbery and vines, and upon closer examination, it was obvious that the curator wanted viewers to imagine themselves in a forest. A viewer could even imagine himself an Apollo, right on Daphne's heels.

But Edward wasn't paying much attention to the art. It wasn't just Bella's dress that he found so distracting, lovely though the rich brown fabric was, draped over Bella's form, with the material clinging here and trailing away there in an oddly structure-less way that was all the more beguiling for appearing so simple. It wasn't just the way that the straps on Bella's sandals wrapped around her calves, oddly fetching detail though that was.

It was Bella itself, her head tilted back as she gazed up at the statue, her eyes bright and her lips parted as she stared.

Watching her for a minute before announcing his presence, Edward tried to identify the expression on her face. Secure in the belief that she didn't know that she was being watched, Edward studied the rise and fall of Bella's chest as she put a hand to her throat.

Her voice, when she spoke, was barely above a whisper. And Edward had no choice then but to emerge from the shadows in order to hear.

He paused behind her, a hairsbreadth away from touching her.

"They used to believe the statues of the gods could come alive," she said. "Can you imagine that?"

It took Edward a moment to register her words—he was so concentrated on staring at her lips—so it was a moment before he could really make sense of what she'd said and think about what it meant.

 _They used to believe the statues of the gods could come alive._

 _Could he imagine that?_

No, of course not. There was no such thing as a god or God or YHWH or Allah or Buddha.

Bella reached a hand towards the statue, but she didn't touch it, her fingers frozen in the air. "There was a statue of Aphrodite at Cnidos. They said that you could see the stain from a man's semen on her leg. He'd fallen in love with her and had made love to her statue."

Edward's head filled with pornographic images. The thought of a man making love to the statue of the goddess of love was—

 _Lust_ , Edward realized. _The expression on Bella's face is lust_.

Edward didn't quite know what to do with that—because this was all so new to him—and yet he didn't dare interrupt her.

Bella licked her lips. "When the Christians came, they broke the statues apart and scattered the pieces. All of that artwork—all of those gods—destroyed. You could save a statue if you said that it was _just_ art, denied that it was a god. So whole temples were turned into art galleries. But if you wanted to go see the statues after that, you weren't allowed to raise your eyes to look at them, for fear that it would be misconstrued as worship. Can you imagine that?" The longing in her voice was plain. "Being _there_ , but not being able to look?"

Edward felt a tension in his chest.

She swallowed again. "We hardly have any originals left. Did you know that? Most of it's Renaissance copies of Roman imitations. Copies of copies." Bella made a derisive noise. "And they used to paint the statues, too. The Romans originals were covered in this hideous paint—it was supposed to make the gods look more lifelike, but today we're so used to seeing the statues with the paint all worn away, perfectly white. It seems garish to us to imagine the statues looking any other way." Bella's hand returned to her throat. "I think they're better without the paint. The skin so pale. You can see the muscles rippling under the flesh."

Standing right behind her by then, Edward watched Bella's fingers tracing the hollow of her neck.

"I wonder what that means," she admitted. "That I prefer them like this. Is it because they seem _less_ lifelike? More ethereal? More removed? I don't know, because sometimes I imagine—"

She broke off, Edward waiting for her to continue, but the silence stretched out. At last, unable to bear it any longer, he prompted her. "What?" he asked, his voice low and husky in her ear. "What do you imagine?"

She hesitated, and her answer was so soft that he had to drop his head down to hear, so that they were standing almost cheek to cheek. "I imagine what it would be like to run my tongue over the stone."

Edward had to clench his fists to stop himself from reacting.

"Would it be cool to the touch?" she asked, emboldened now that she'd made her confession. "Like stone ought to be? Or would it be warm? Would I feel the muscles writhing? Would it taste like salt?"

"You want that?" Edward asked, his voice husky.

But then Edward made a mistake. Dragging his eyes away from Bella, he ran his eyes over the sculpture, wanting to understand what it was that Bella was seeing.

And what he saw wasn't good.

Yes, he saw beauty. He saw the sublime.

But it wasn't something a person ought to want.

He saw the implication of violence in the straining of Apollo's muscles, the fear as Daphne twisted away, desperate to escape.

Not really wanting to hear the answer, Edward asked. "You want something like that?"

When Bella didn't answer, Edward pressed again. "You want to be snared? Unable to escape?"

He waited, the silence stretching out again.

This time, it lasted so long that he had decided that she wasn't going to respond. So he was surprised to hear Bella's voice at last, soft though it was.

"I think—I think sometimes that it would be better to feel something rather than nothing."

Stumbling backwards, Edward wanted nothing more than to unhear the words that Bella had just said.

 _She felt nothing_.

 _She thought that she was the one who was just going through the motions?_

Of the two of them, Edward had been so sure that _he_ was the one with that problem. _He_ was the one with nothing. Unable to experience any new joy. Any new hope. Dead inside.

"There you are," a voice called from the other entrance of the hall.

Bristling at the intrusion, Edward turned and saw Cheney entering with Stefanos, a fellow physician from the hospital. For some reason, neither one had brought a date that night. Edward had already spied them trawling for women to pick up.

"Are you going to introduce us to the lovely lady?" Stefanos asked.

Edward would have preferred to tell Stefanos to go to hell. He had never liked the guy.

Returning to his spot by Bella's side, and unable to quell a sudden possessive feeling, Edward slipped an arm around Bella's waist as he performed the introductions.

"You like sculpture?" Cheney asked, looking at Bella.

She glanced back at the statue and Edward tightened his grip around her waist. He would not be held responsible for his actions if Bella told Stefanos that she fantasized about fucking Apollo.

Fortunately, Bella appeared to have gotten over her temporary lust, because when she answered Cheney, her voice was cool, detached. Edward recognized her tone from her lecture in the auditorium. "Bernini's _Daphne and Apollo_ has always been one of my favorites."

Stefanos was looking at the image quizzically. "I don't get it," he said. "What's with the leaves?"

"Apollo was in love with Daphne. She refused him, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. Desperate to escape, Daphne pleaded for help. A god granted her wish by turning her into a tree."

"That sucks," Stefanos observed. "I mean, great, you don't have to hook up with a creeper, but bad news, you're a tree now."

Bella hitched a shoulder.

"So what do you do?" Cheney asked.

"I'm going to school," Bella explained.

"She's getting her doctorate in Ancient Mediterranean studies," Edward supplied, in a tone that an outside observer would have recognized as pride.

Stefanos whistled. "Ooh, fancy. So I guess you know all about this Greek stuff."

"A little something," Bella conceded.

Cheney asked her a question about her research, and Edward bristled again, because if she started talking about virginity, Edward was going to—

"It's not very interesting. Changing views of morality in Late Antiquity."

"Morality?" Stefanos asked.

Edward glared at him.

"Well, like charity. It existed, but something like this," Bella looked around. "The Romans would have something like this in their own houses. There weren't many publicly funded galleries. And they donated to charity, but not often."

"The money from tonight's going to pay for a lot of valuable new equipment," Cheney explained.

"And the canapés are delicious," Stefanos said. "Have you tried any?"

Bella shook her head.

"Well Edward should stop holding you hostage back here and let you come eat," Cheney chastened. "Come on, Edward."

The four of them wandered back to the main gallery and tried the canapés. They were, indeed, delicious.

But Edward was suddenly second-guessing his decision to bring Bella.

He wasn't worried about Bella enjoying herself. If anything, she seemed relaxed and confident.

 _Too_ relaxed and confident. It bothered Edward more than he wanted to admit watching Bella like this. He was jealous, yes, but more than that, he realized that _this_ was the way that Bella should always seem. Calm. Strong.

And it didn't escape Edward's notice that Cheney looked at ease right next to her. They looked like they belonged together.

Cheney was normal, and Bella deserved someone normal. Not a fuck up like Edward.

Edward's thoughts kept returning to that statue of Daphne and Apollo. He couldn't get Bella's words out of his head.

The thought that she might actually crave something like that—

She deserved normal.

And if she wasn't with someone normal, a man like Cheney, it was because of Port Angeles.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Bella could tell that something was off with Edward, and she was afraid that that something was her.

She knew that she was being weird.

Or rather she _felt_ weird.

All dressed up in her borrowed garb. She was trying very hard to fit in, but she clearly wasn't pulling it off, because Edward was getting quieter with every passing moment.

Bella was just so damn nervous. Arriving at the gallery that night, she was had been so anxious that she had ducked out of the main hall and escaped down a corridor. She didn't mean to go far—she just needed a few moments to collect herself—but then she found the sculpture, and her heart gave a lurch.

At first, she thought it was the original—and she couldn't believe her eyes—but then she realized it was a copy. Or rather, a close imitation. There were subtle differences. But it was close enough.

And Bella had always loved Bernini's _Daphne and Apollo_. If she ever got the chance to go to Rome, visiting the statue would be one of her first stops. There was just something about it.

Apollo wasn't particularly appealing. Not as a specimen of masculine virility, at least. Not to Bella. She much preferred Daphne, at least aesthetically.

The depiction of the young woman was just so incredibly lifelike. A ripple of fat at her hips, bulging out as she twisted away. Her mouth open—was she gasping for breath or was she about to yell in horror? Bella had always wondered about the reason for Daphne's expression. Was it the dread of what awaited her if the god captured her, or the panic as she felt her flesh began to give way to bark?

Bella had seen several photos of Bernini's statue, but it was so much more imposing in person, even if she was only seeing an imitation.

She couldn't help but stand there, staring at it. Utterly transfixed.

When Edward found her, Bella was a trifle unnerved. The statue did something to her—she couldn't deny it. And she didn't blame him for being put off by her behavior.

She tried to make up for her faux pas, though. Never having been one for socializing, she nevertheless tried. As she circulated through the crowd, she pretended that everyone she encountered was just a recalcitrant student that she was trying to coax into conversation. She found that if she asked the right questions, they did most of the talking themselves.

When Edward suggested they leave early, it was only a little after seven.

"I don't have work or school tomorrow until the afternoon," Bella said. "I hope you're not leaving on my account."

He shook his head. "Early surgery."

She wondered if he was lying, but she didn't put up a protest as they collected their coats and made their way out to Edward's car.

Still, Bella tried to give Edward an out, in case Edward _was_ annoyed with her. "Are you sure that you can give me a ride? I can take the bus."

"Your place is on the way," he reminded her.

So, despite her growing sense of unease, Bella let him drive her home.

And with every passing block Bella, felt her annoyance and anxiety rise.

If Edward was angry at her, she wished that he would just tell her what she'd done wrong.

If he wasn't angry, then he was just being a jerk.

 _Actually_ , she decided, _he's a jerk either way_.

The way that he was giving her the silent treatment—that shit was juvenile.

As they pulled up in front of Bella's apartment, Bella was trying to decide whether to tell him to just come out with it already or to _fuck off._

But before Bella could decide which to do, Edward dropped a hand to her wrist and held her in place.

"Bella, I'm sorry," he apologized.

She thought that he was apologizing for being so quiet all evening.

"I'm so fucking sorry for Port Angeles," he clarified.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

By the beginning of Bella's senior year in high school, she was ready to get out of Forks. Bella was only seventeen years old, but she was sick and fucking tired of living in that town. She was sick of small-minded, judgmental sons of bitches and hypocrites.

Not that she could blame them for what they thought of Bella's mother.

But to take that out on Bella—

How could they?

And they called themselves Christians? Going to church every Sunday, then turning around and treating Bella like trash. Whispering about her behind her back. Oh, she knew what they were saying. As far as they were concerned, Bella was no better than her whore mother.

Not that Bella had ever done anything to attract the romantic attentions of any male in that town. She was careful to dress in clothes that concealed her form. She usually went out of her way to avoid all contact with men, including her teachers and Carlisle. Even her father's deputies.

She didn't deserve the way that Forks was treating her. In fact, that town owed her.

Well, they owed her father. He had been Chief of police for nearly a decade. He deserved better from that town.

But ever since her father's accident—his cruiser skidding into a tree on a lonely mountain road—the town had turned its back on the Swans.

Oh, at first they'd feigned sympathy. Sending "Get Well" cards and flowers to her father's hospital room, for all the good that would do him.

Six months after his accident, he still required round-the-clock care. He was confined to his hospital bed in the Seattle clinic where he'd been transferred. The doctors said that he would probably never walk again.

And where were the lovely people of Forks then? The care baskets had stopped coming. The "Get Well" cards had yellowed with age and the flowers were all dead. The visitors had long since ceased to stop by.

But it would be wrong to say that Forks had ceased to care. Alas, its one act of kindness was at the same time an act of cruelty: Not one report was made to the authorities regarding the fact that a minor was living by herself without adult supervision. Bella lived on her own, a seventeen year old, for nearly three months, and she went on living alone after her eighteenth birthday. And no one said a single word. Everyone knew what was happening. But no one wanted to take the chance that a complaint would bring Renee back to town. Some even reasoned that Bella was better off on her own. Better off without Renee, that is.

The town's silence was particularly suspicious when it came to the Cullens. If anyone was going to take an interest in Bella's welfare, it ought to have been the Cullens. They were the ones, after all, who took Bella in when Charlie was first hurt.

Of course, that ended as soon as Renee rolled into town. But after Renee left—was driven out—the Cullens should have taken Bella back. They should have insisted that she return.

In their defense, Bella _was_ invited back to the Cullens' home. Esme stood in Bella's kitchen, pleading with the girl to return.

But how could Bella ever accept such an offer? She couldn't even bear to meet Esme's eyes. _Didn't Esme know that Edward was one of the boys being mentioned in the stories about Renee?_

And as for Bella's friendship with Alice, well, suffice it to say that the two friends were going through a rough patch. After the rumors about Renee began going around, Bella had only been able to bring herself to speak to Alice a few times, and then only in horribly stilted conversations in which the two friends pretended not to notice the elephant in the room.

So Bella refused Esme's offer, said that she would be just fine on her own, would _prefer_ to be on her own, in fact.

Esme knew that was bullshit, but she accepted the lie. She hated herself a little for that, but Esme knew how much Bella and Edward fought with one another. Esme could only imagine how awful their fighting would be now.

And, God help her, Esme was even a little afraid that there might be a grain of truth to the rumors about Renee and Edward. Esme loved Edward. Loved him like he was her own son. But she didn't trust him. And if something had in fact happened with Renee, Esme believed that Renee, not Edward, was the one who was at fault. Esme knew damn well that Renee had _offered_ herself to those boys. And if they accepted, it was because they were too young and stupid and naïve to know any better.

But a decision like that could ruin a boy's life. Esme knew how fragile Edward was. And she didn't want him being reminded of his mistake every day.

Bella _would_ remind him, too—she would rub it in his face. As much as Esme loved the girl, Esme also knew that Bella wouldn't miss the opportunity to take a shot at Edward. Just like he wouldn't miss the opportunity to take a shot back.

Esme told herself that it was in Bella's interests, really, that she not have to face Edward.

There was just so much animosity between the two teenagers. Esme had been truly shocked by some of the things she'd overheard the two of them saying to each other when they thought no one was listening. They maintained a cold truce whenever Carlisle and Esme were in the room, but whenever the teenagers weren't under direct supervision, the two of them seemed to take a special delight in tearing each other apart. It frightened Esme to realize how much they hated each other.

If Bella moved back to the Cullens' now, there was a chance, of course, that Bella would keep her mouth shut. She might very well be sufficiently embarrassed over her mother's behavior to stay mum.

But the sight of the girl, day in and day out, would be a painful reminder to Edward of his mistake.

Esme couldn't put Edward through that. As much as he seemed to have improved over the last few years, Esme was afraid that he would begin to backslide.

And that would be just so unfair. Edward would be leaving for college in two months. He was talking about going into a premed program. He had his whole life ahead of him. Edward didn't deserve for all of that to be screwed up by some slut.

By "slut," naturally, Esme meant Renee, not Bella. Esme knew that woman was trouble the moment she laid eyes on her.

Long before she met Renee face-to-face, Esme had seen enough to know that Renee was a shitty mother. Bella returned to Forks every summer a little more jaded, a little more skittish. Bella was clearly experiencing things no girl her age should have to know about.

When Bella began living in Forks year-round, Esme was thrilled. Esme did her best to be the mother that she knew Bella didn't have. It was obvious, too, that Bella was desperate for affection. Esme was all too happy to offer it, and Bella seemed to be doing better. She was still skittish, but Esme could tell that she was beginning to lose some of her cynicism.

If only Edward and Bella weren't such a bad influence on each other.

Something seemed to happen whenever the two of them were in close proximity. They would both change, walls going up and the weapons coming out. They would revert to the old Bella and the old Edward—so closed off, so defensive. Esme hated to see it.

So she accepted Bella's lie. Esme took Bella's word for it that she would be better off living on her own. Esme reasoned that it was in Bella's interests—that it wouldn't do Bella any good having to face Edward.

To ease her conscience, Esme would stop by Bella's every once in a while, to make sure that the girl was doing alright. And by the end of August, when Edward left for college in Seattle, Bella had been living on her own for two months. She seemed to be doing just fine, and she refused Esme's renewed offer to stay with the Cullens.

So Esme told herself that Bella was okay on her own. After all, Edward would be coming home for the weekends and the holidays, and if he had to face Bella, he might decide to stay away.

Besides, Bella was a mature girl. And no doubt Charlie would be out of the hospital soon.

Except that he wasn't. The likelihood of him ever leaving the hospital was low, and Esme should have known that. And what teenage girl is mature enough to live on her own when her father's lying paralyzed in a hospital?

In Esme's defense, Bella's father was becoming more and more lucid. He was coherent enough to ask Bella about her accommodations. He was grateful to hear that the Cullens had taken her in. He had no idea, of course, that a careful use of the past tense was all that kept this from being a lie. He made sure that Bella had access to a bank account to pay for her needs and counted himself lucky. He had no idea that Renee had ever come to town.

Unsurprisingly, the start of Bella's senior year saw her alone and lonely. When Bella was living with her mother during the school year, autumn always left her depressed. As much as she missed her mother during the summer, Bella hated the way her mother lived. And the end of summer meant going back to that.

Once Bella started living in Forks year-round, however, her attitude changed drastically. Autumn became her favorite time of the year.

But this year was different. For the first time since she started living in Forks year-round, the start of autumn left Bella depressed. Autumn meant school, and going to school meant having to face all of the other students. Bella had never been popular. But now she was in hell.

Lunches were spent hiding in her truck alone. Bella was barely talking to Alice. And Alice didn't seem to really mind the change. If anything, Alice seemed to be more popular than ever.

When Bella wasn't in school, she was at home. She rarely went out. She had stopped shopping in Forks altogether, unable to bear the comments. Every few weeks, Bella drove all of the way to Port Angeles for her food, stocking up on canned products and other non-perishables.

The Friday night before Halloween, Bella's house fell victim to vandals. The trees in her yard were decorated with toilet paper. The front of the house was egged and the word "whore" was spray-painted on the front door. Bella slept through the festivities, the television playing in the background, set to QVC because Bella liked the homey quality of the presenters, the way that they made a viewer feel like she was part of the family.

When Bella saw the vandalism, she was too embarrassed to call the police. Bella knew that her father's deputies were the ones responsible for running her mother out of town. She couldn't bear the thought of having to face any of them.

She did her best to clean the egg off the siding, using a hose. She used a ladder to clean up the toilet paper. And she found an old can of paint in the basement and painted over the graffiti on the door.

When she was done, Bella drove up to Port Angeles. She knew that her truck wasn't really up to the drive, but she needed to get out of that town, if only for a few hours.

Once in Port Angeles, Bella headed for her favorite used bookshops. She spent most of the afternoon and early evening hours wandering through the stacks, idly browsing the books.

She was eyeing a shelf of Brontes when she noticed a book that had been misshelved. Bella hated that. Grabbing the volume in question, Bella intended to make sure that it was shelved properly, but first, she decided to just glance inside.

" _A single day strews everything in ruins."_

Bella snorted. Because, yeah, life was like that.

And flipping to another, she read another line. " _To be afflicted with endless sorrow at the loss of someone very dear is foolish self-indulgence._ "

Bella was struck with a surge of anger at that— _what kind of fuckery was this?—_ but she kept reading.

" _And to feel no sorrow at such a loss is inhuman callousness. The best compromise between love and good sense is both to feel longing and to conquer it."_

Well—

Well, Bella _was_ feeling a bit selfish. Her father was lying in a hospital, and here she was trying to forget her troubles for a few hours.

But it wouldn't do good to wallow.

How was Bella supposed to figure out the "appropriate" level of grief, though? Every time she started thinking about her father, she felt like she was drowning. Or else she felt nothing at all, as if she was dead inside.

She kept reading.

" _You have to get used to your circumstances, complain about them as little as possible, and grasp whatever advantage they have to offer."_

How could there possibly be any advantage to her father's accident?

" _Think your way through difficulties: harsh conditions can be softened, restricted ones can be widened and heavy ones can weigh less on those who know how to bear them._ "

How the fuck was Bella supposed to change the fact that her father was lying in a hospital bed or that the entire town of Forks had decided to ostracize her?

" _Fortune falls heavily on those to whom she is unexpected; the man who is always expecting her easily withstands her._ "

Well, Bella had that one covered, at least. She had been telling herself to expect the worst for a while now. It hurt too much to hope.

" _Only the most worthless of our possessions can come into the power of another_."

That was bullshit. Bella had no control over anything. Other people had all of the power. They did things and she reacted. The end.

Yet a part of Bella couldn't help wondering if that was really true. She was the one who made the decision to go home with Renee, when her mother showed up at the Cullens' door after Charlie's accident. And afterwards, Bella had refused Esme's offer to return to the Cullens. Bella was the one who decided not to call the police about the vandalism. She thought that it would be worse if she made waves. But was that true?

" _As for those sour and disapproving characters, those critics of other people's lives—and spoilers of their own—who set themselves up as moral tutors to society at large, you needn't give a damn for them."_

Oh, how Bella longed to march into the churches of Forks one fine Sunday. She so wanted to tell the people of that town what she really thought of them.

" _Nothing will help quite so much as just keeping quiet, talking with others as little as possible, with yourself as much as possible. For conversation has a kind of charm about it, an insinuating and insidious something that elicits secrets from us just like love or liquor. Nobody will keep the things he hears to himself and nobody will repeat just what he hears and no more_."

Bella felt something inside her thrum in agreement. The people of Forks were a bunch of gossiping liars. And Bella had no problem keeping to herself. Fuck everyone else.

" _Somewhere or other we are going to have encounters with wild beasts, and with man, too—more dangerous than all those beasts. Floods will rob us of one thing, fire of another. These are the conditions of our existence which we cannot change. What we can do is adopt a noble spirit, such a spirit as befits a good man, so that we may bear up bravely under all that fortune sends us."_

Bella didn't deserve to be treated the way that the "good" people of Forks were treating her. If she made a mistake in leaving the Cullens to go stay with Renee in Charlie's house after his accident, then she had learned her lesson. And the punishment far outweighed the crime.

It wasn't fair.

And what was more, it had nothing to do with her. She wasn't a whore. The people of Forks could treat her like shit, but that wouldn't make her a slut. They could egg her house, but they couldn't make her lose her self-respect. That was _Private Property of Isabella Marie Swan_.

She wasn't stupid, either. She knew the road ahead. Her father was probably never going to recover. Awful as that would be, it wouldn't mean her life was over. In fact, Bella had already applied for several colleges. And she was looking into all of the funding opportunities. Her future didn't look rosy, but she at least had a future.

Bella sat on the floor of that bookshop, thumbing through the rest of the pages in that volume of essays by a dead Roman. She didn't agree with everything she read that day, but she found it something of a consolation to find that this Seneca guy was just as lost as she was. He was trying to figure things out.

Such was Bella's fascination with the volume in question, that she lost track of time. When the proprietor of the shop told her that he was closing up, she was surprised to see that it almost nine o'clock. Bella paid for her books, including the Seneca, and began what should have been a short trek back to the parking lot where she'd left her truck, hastily traversing the quiet intersections and eyeing the dark alleys.

She had only gone a few blocks before she realized that she'd taken a wrong turn. Not recognizing the area, Bella began to backtrack.

And swinging around a corner, she found herself face to face with a group of young men obviously out for a night of fun.

"Hey there," one of them said in a drunken slur. "How you doin'?"

Bella felt relieved when she recognized the voice. It was one of Forks High's illustrious jocks. He was a jerk, but at least she knew him.

Her sense of relief started to evaporate, however, when one of the young men in the party blocked Bella's path. "What you doing in this part of town?"

Backing up, Bella started to reply when she was cut off by the first one.

"Working, like her mom."

Angry then, Bella turned to tell the first one off when she felt someone patting her head. Jerking away, she realized that they had surrounded her.

"In that get-up?" one of them asked. "She's leaving too much to the imagination." The young man in question tugged on her jacket. "You got to give a guy an idea of what they're buying."

"Nah, nah," the second one said. "I like a little mystery. Gets the blood pumping. Makes me wonder just how much she's like her mother."

"Leave me alone," Bella spit, and instantly regretted her words, hearing how weak she sounded.

"Think you're too good for us?" the first one asked. "With a mother like yours?"

"Maybe she just wants more money," the third one speculated, as Bella tried to come to grips with what was happening. _There was no way that this was really happening._ She thought about swinging the shopping bag at them—but would that really do any damage?

"How much d'you think you're worth?" the second one demanded. "Huh?"

"Let's find out," the fourth one suggested, seizing Bella's arm as the second one clamped a hand over her mouth.

Dropping her shopping bag, Bella bit down on the hand covering her mouth and started punching at the one who had a hold of her arm.

"He—" she squawked before a fist hit her stomach and all of the air left her lungs. Flailing, Bella dragged her nails across someone's face and heard a yelp.

"Bitch!" one of the youths cursed as they forced her into an alley, away from the street.

 _Fuck that._ Bella began kicking and fighting for all she was worth. There was no fucking way that this was going to happen to her.

But it was no good. There were too many of them and they were just so much stronger than her.

She heard the crack as her head struck a brick wall. Eyes swimming with unshed tears, Bella opened her mouth to plead with them to let her go. "Please—"

"Please what?" the second one asked as he started undoing his belt, his friends holding Bella in place. "Please fuck your pussy with my cock? You don't have to beg, honey. I'll let you have it. For free, this time."

"What's going on?" a voice asked.

Bella looked up, ready to beg whoever had arrived for help, only to freeze, because why, oh why, did it have to Edward fucking Cullen?

He was standing at the end of the alley, watching.

"Hey man, we thought we'd lost you," the one undoing his belt said, pausing.

"I got held up," Edward said.

"Well look at what we found."

The one holding Bella's right arm snorted. "We're finally going to find out if the daughter's as good as the mother."

Edward didn't say anything.

"You want first crack?" the second one offered, like he was making a great magnanimous gesture.

"My condoms are in the car," Edward replied.

The rest of them looked at each other. "You got any condoms?" one of them asked.

They all shook their heads.

"Well, shit. I ain't touching that diseased cooch without a rubber," the one undoing his belt said.

"I'll go get them," Edward told them. "Be right back."

"Fucking hurry."

And Edward left.

At which point something in Bella broke.

She had held her tongue when Edward appeared. She despised him. And, after what had happened with Renee, she was filled with shame whenever she thought of him.

But she couldn't believe that Edward was capable of leaving her in this alley to his friends. _And he certainly wasn't going to come back here to—_

"While we're waiting, you can show me if you've got your mother's mouth," the second one said, finishing with his belt and starting on the zipper. "Put her on her knees."

"No!" Bella began struggling again, and cried out as her hair was pulled at the same time that a foot hit the back of her left knee, forcing her down.

Hands held Bella's head in place, one of the hands forcing her jaw open. Her stomach lurched as a hoarse scream started to work its way out of her throat before a hand around her windpipe cut her breath off.

 _No!_

If that son-of-a-bitch was fucking stupid enough to shove his dick in her mouth, she'd bite it the fuck off!

"No teeth," the motherfucker warned her as he reached into his pants.

 _Edward!_ Bella silently screamed.

She told herself that he was just confused by what he'd seen. He must have thought that she was there willingly. He couldn't possibly—

 _He would stop them when he got back. He would stop them—_

"Freeze!" a voice yelled.

The hands holding Bella suddenly let her go, and she collapsed on the dirty pavement, sobbing and panting and gagging, so very thankful that the police had showed up before that sick fuck managed to get his dick anywhere near her mouth.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Fucked up though it may sound, Bella thought about not pressing charges. Things were already bad enough for her in Forks. The town wouldn't take kindly to her accusing four of their golden boys of attempted rape.

In the end, she went through with the charges, but only because she couldn't bear the idea of them doing the same thing to someone else.

She didn't say anything about Edward, though. She justified her decision by telling herself that he thought she was in that alley willingly. He had clearly been drunk. And he was just confused. The truth was, Bella couldn't bear to bring the Cullens into it. She owed them too much.

Needless to say, life in Forks didn't improve for Bella after that. As far as Forks was concerned, the youths in question had been led astray by her mother. So if they did anything wrong, it was Renee's fault.

The nastier folk wondered what Bella was doing walking around Port Angeles in the middle of the night. Some of the more foul-minded went so far as to speculate that she was in fact following in her mother's footsteps, and that she only accused the boys of attempted rape to get out of a prostitution charge.

If school had been hell for Bella before this, it was now torture.

Surprisingly, Bella's house was only vandalized a few more times, and the vandals stuck to eggs and toilet paper, avoiding paint.

Esme renewed her efforts to check on Bella, knocking on the girl's door at least once a week. But Bella always pretended that she wasn't at home. Unable to get a hold of Bella herself, Esme was forced to rely on status updates from Alice. And unfortunately, Esme never realized that Alice was lying to her. Esme even took Alice's good mood as a sign that things were improving for Bella, never once realizing that Alice's mood had improved because Alice had left Bella behind, joining the "cool kids" with one hastily scribbled word across Bella's locker at school.

To the best of Bella's knowledge, her father never found out what happened with her mother. And a botched operation ensured that he was fairly incoherent when the gossip surrounding the incident at Port Angeles was at its peak. Their house was sold when Bella left for college and neither Bella nor her father ever returned to Forks.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

It had been almost a decade since Bella was attacked in Port Angeles. She didn't like to dwell on the incident. She did her best to shove it all down into a tiny little box. The same box where she stuck all of her memories about the men Renee was always bringing around when Bella was a kid.

Psychiatrists make such a big deal out of repression, like it's such a bad thing, when really, it just provides an evolutionary advantage. If people could remember all of the bad things that happen to them, they'd never do anything. Psychiatrists only make a big deal out of it because they make money off of people thinking that you have to face your past in order to move forward.

But how could Bella possibly function if she went around all of the time dwelling on that past? Especially in light of the fact that her field of study—ancient Mediterranean history—is dominated by men. Most scholars in the field, including most of her professors and most of her students, were men. How could Bella function in such an environment if she went around cherishing the memory of those hands on her body and the things those boys had said to her?

And rape was by no means an uncommon topic in ancient Mediterranean history. It drove all of the mythology.

To an outside observer, it was obvious that the ancient Mediterranean obsession with rape was one of the reasons Bella chose that field of study. She would have denied it—she probably didn't even realize it—but it had a good deal to do with her fascination with the period.

She could talk about rape when it was happening to someone else. When it was just a story in a book.

But when it came to her—that subject was strictly off limits. As far as she was concerned, it had never happened.

So what the fuck did Edward think that he was doing, bringing it up like this?

"I was down from Seattle to see my family, but I had to pick up a birthday present for Carlisle. I ran into them in the music store." He snorted. "Fucking _losers_. We weren't even friends. I fucking hated them. They were Tyler's friends, not mine. But—" Edward shook his head. "I was so fucked up then. I just—I didn't know what I was doing. They talked me into going to a bar. We had fake IDs." He shook his head again. "And of course the assholes stiffed me with the bill." Edward glanced at Bella. "When I found them in that alley, I knew what they were doing."

Bella didn't want to hear this. She couldn't bear to hear how it had looked through his eyes. How she had looked, pinned against that wall.

She wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up, to tell him that it didn't matter, that it was the past.

But she knew that if she opened her mouth that she would be sobbing. And she couldn't—she just couldn't.

She dug her fingers into her seat and held her tongue.

"I was afraid that they wouldn't listen to me if I tried to stop them. They were assholes. And I was afraid that I was too drunk to take them on if they wanted to fight." He cleared his throat. "I should have done something more. But I was wasted—and I—you know, I told them that I was going back for condoms."

Bella was going to scream. If he didn't shut up, she was going to—

"I was going to call 911 but I couldn't find my cell. I was still looking for it when I saw a cop and told him that some guys had a girl in an alley."

And the world stopped.

"I didn't stick around," Edward said, his voice shaking. "The cops told me to stay put but I ran. Like a fucking coward."

 _No, no, no, no—_ that wasn't what happened.

If that was what had happened—

"I found my phone and I called Carlisle to come and get me because I was too wasted to drive. I didn't tell him about—about you. I didn't tell anyone." Edward ran his hands through his hair. "I stopped drinking after that. I've never gotten hammered like that since that night. I was so ashamed. As it was, I could hardly bear to look in my parents' faces after—" Edward broke off. "After your mother," he whispered hoarsely.

 _FUCK NO! PLEASE GOD NO!_ She couldn't hear this. She couldn't bear to hear him talk about this too.

"Bella, I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry for what happened with your mother."

 **AN:**

 **Sorry for the delay. New job, technology failures, bratty students, last minute grading, snow storm, stranded in middle of nowhere, screaming match with psycho at weekly protest that's normally 100% peaceful. Will reply to reviews ASAP.**

 **Seneca the Younger references in this chapter are from Letters XCI, CVII, CXXIII translated by Robin Campbell, and** _ **Consolation to Helvia**_ **and** _ **On Tranquility of Mind**_ **translated by C. D. N. Costa**

 **It's my understanding that the authorities wouldn't have required the involvement of a legal guardian in the prosecution of Bella's assailants since she was eighteen, even though she was still in high school. If I am wrong about the Port Angeles PD insisting on the involvement of a guardian in Bella's case, then just pretend that she ended up calling one of the deputies to come and pick her up from the hospital, and that some handshake deals ensured that the issue didn't come up again during the resolution of her case (presumably the youths all made deals rather than go to trial). The deputies would have been assuming that they were doing Bella a favor/trying to avoid further trouble in Forks. As for Esme not freaking out more seriously at this point, assume that she almost called the authorities to report Bella for living on her own, but she was worried about what would happen to the girl if she had to go into the system. I hope that ties up any loose ends created by my desire to completely isolate Bella and remove Charlie from the story, at the same time refusing to do any research into the subject.**


	20. Chapter 20

**Warning: Reference to verbal child abuse with language of a sexual nature. It's not graphic so an alternate censored chapter has not been provided. There's also a reference to the contemplation of self-harm.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

Crobyle: "So Corinna, you've now discovered that it wasn't at all as bad as you'd imagined losing your virginity."

Corinna: "Yes mummy dear."

Crobyle: "I reckoned that when you were the age you are now, you'd be able to look after me, and easily get yourself clothed well, grow rich and have purple robes and maids."

Corinna: "What do you mean mother? How?"

Crobyle: "By spending your time with young men, drinking with them, and sleeping with them for money."

– Lucian [abridged] _Chattering Courtesans_ translated by Keith Sidwell

Chapter 20

Bella was seven years old when she first realized that her mother was a whore.

She couldn't remember a time when her parents had been together. As far as Bella knew, her mother, Renee, had split the minute she gave birth, leaving Bella to live with her father in Forks.

Renee wasn't entirely devoid of mothering instinct, however. Every couple of months, Bella's mother would roll into town with a trunk-full of presents and a collection of promises that never seemed to come true.

But everything changed when Bella turned five. Renee wanted to take Bella back to Arizona with her.

Bella knew that she'd miss her father, but she was desperate to get to know her mother better. She begged her father to let her go.

Suspicious of Renee's intentions, but afraid of breaking his daughter's heart, Charlie agreed.

The journey to Phoenix was something of a revelation for Bella. Sitting in the passenger seat of Renee's car, Bella got a sunburn. She had never experienced sunlight like that. The red-hot heat stabbing down.

But the sunburn was worth it, because Bella could hardly believe her eyes when she caught her first glimpse of the Painted Desert. It was like an alien landscape. An arid, dry span of earth, with no vegetation in sight but for a few scattered bushes, and striated cliffs painted in the most brilliant shades of orange and purple, against a backdrop of skies that were a swirl of cream and blue.

Bella fell asleep in the car staring out the window up at the sky—so many stars, with a moon so huge that she felt like she could reach up and touch it if she wanted to—and woke up the next morning in the middle of the city.

The streets were teeming with people and cars and buildings, all jostling for space. This, too, was something of a revelation for Bella. She had been to Seattle before, but either she'd just not paid attention or Charlie had avoided the seamier sides of the city, because Bella had never before seen so much graffiti. Nor had she seen so much garbage in the streets. And she had heard of homeless people, but this was her first time actually seeing them.

There were a lot of other "firsts" in store for Bella.

Renee lived on the second floor of a dingy apartment building. There was no elevator and there was litter on the stairwell. Bella had never lived in an apartment before, and she couldn't help being scared when her mother would pound on the wall, screaming at the neighbor to shut the hell up. (It was even more frightening to Bella when the neighbor would return the favor.)

Renee's apartment only had one bedroom and Renee said that she needed it for business. So Bella slept on the coach. Bella didn't mind that, though, because it meant that she could watch tv whenever she wanted to, even if the selection of channels was pretty meager. Renee didn't have cable. Bella grew up on PBS.

The first (and only) time that Bella was ever spanked, it was as punishment for her efforts against (what she perceived as) animal cruelty. Having come across a collection of mouse traps, Bella threw out the lot of them, assuming that they had been left behind by the previous tenant. It never occurred to her that her mother could be responsible for their presence in the apartment, and she just couldn't bear the idea of a mouse coming to harm in one of the traps.

"That's my money you threw out," Renee said as she spanked the girl. "Now those mice are going to bite you while you're asleep. And you'll get you sick. They've got diseases."

That night, Bella woke up to the squeaks of a mouse caught in one of the traps. She tried to bury her head under the covers, but she couldn't escape the noise. An anguished Bella tried to wake up her mother. But Renee was sleeping with a grown-up friend and told Bella to get the fuck out of her room. So Bella went back to the couch and turned on the tv to drown out the noise, wishing that she was brave enough to carry the trap outside and let the mouse go.

In the morning, when Renee ordered Bella to empty the trap into the garbage, Bella had the first of what she later came to realize were panic attacks.

The first time that Bella saw a cockroach, she vomited. Antennae quivering, the cockroach in question paid her no heed as it scurried across the counter, having just emerged from the same box of cereal from whence Bella had obtained her breakfast.

Bella walked to school alone for the first time a scant twenty minutes later. "It's just nerves," Renee told her, pinching her nose at the vomit. "You'll be fine."

"Aren't you going to walk with me?" a panicking Bella.

"Why would I do that?" Renee asked. She pointed out the window. "Just take a right at the gas station."

Bella heard the word "whore" for the first time two nights later. "I don't want whores in my place," the landlord said, shaking his head at Renee.

Bella didn't know what a "whore" was, but she was smart enough to figure out that it was something bad. After the landlord left, Renee threw a temper tantrum, which surprised Bella, because she thought only kids did stuff like that.

"Fucking prick should just be happy he gets paid on time," Renee hissed, throwing an empty beer bottle at the wall (thereby inspiring the neighbor to pound on the wall and scream "Shut the fuck up").

Confused and scared, Bella couldn't help fearing that it was somehow all her fault. Was "whore" another word for "kid"? Was the landlord mad that Bella had moved in?

Bella made up her mind to look the word up in a dictionary at school the next day, but she forgot.

Since Bella's mother worked nights, Bella spent most nights with a babysitter who lived down the hall. One night, as Bella sat at the babysitter's table doing her math homework, she realized that she'd left the book that she was currently reading back in her apartment, on her couch/bed.

Bella was in the midst of reading _The Black Stallion_ , no mean feat for a girl her age, but she loved horses. She'd just gotten to the part where Alec arrived on the island. Bella was desperate to know what happened next.

Glancing at her babysitter, Bella confirmed that the woman was still asleep, propped up in front of the tv.

Quietly, Bella crept out the door, and sprinted to her apartment.

She used the key hanging on the chain around her neck to unlock the door. Determined to be quick, Bella rushed inside, but she was brought up short by grunting coming from the direction of the kitchen.

She heard her mother cry out, like she was in pain.

Bella panicked. Her mother was supposed to be working. What was she doing at home? And what was wrong with her?

Creeping towards the kitchen, Bella froze when she saw what was happening.

She saw a man's fleshy backside jiggling as he thrust back and forth against Bella's mother, who was bent over the kitchen table.

"Take it like a whore," the man grunted.

"Yeah, like that baby. Just like that," Bella's mother moaned.

Her mother didn't seem to be in pain. But this—if this was what Bella thought it was—then it didn't look like right, either. In fact, it looked nothing like what Bella had imagined.

Shocked and confused, Bella ran out of the apartment, forgetting her book and slamming the door in her haste.

Later, when Renee came to pick her up, Bella could tell that she was angry.

Renee snapped at the babysitter. "I pay you to watch my daughter, not sleep."

"Well, excuse me," the babysitter said. "Maybe if you weren't too busy to take care of you daughter—"

"At least I don't let her go running all over the place. She was in the apartment tonight."

With a pang of anxiety, Bella realized that her mother knew that she'd been there.

The babysitter cackled. "It's about time she found out that her mother was a whore."

"Fuck you," Renee sneered. "Just do a better job."

Bella was afraid that Renee was going to yell at her too—or, worse, spank her—but her mother didn't say a word to her.

In fact, her mother hardly spoke to her for a week.

Wary of doing or saying anything that might set her mother off, Bella took it upon herself to piece the truth together on her own.

It hadn't escaped her notice that her mother had so many male friends. And, like all first graders in this day and age, Bella had a basic notion of what sex was. Though she had never imagined that it would look anything like what she saw in the kitchen, it was becoming increasingly obvious that this was exactly what she had observed.

But what did that have to do with being a "whore"?

Bella knew that people said that only moms and dads were supposed to have sex. She also knew that things had changed.

Bella knew that she was living in the radical age of "today," and though Bella wasn't sophisticated enough to employ terms like the "falling standards of morality," she understood that people weren't as "well-behaved" as they used to be.

But Bella didn't have much use for old busy-bodies who thought everything should stay the same. (In the so-called good old days, people had worn uncomfortable corsets and lots and lots of stifling layers of fabric. Did that make any sense when you were living in Arizona and wanted to run and play? No.)

So maybe the landlord was just a mean old coot. (He certainly seemed mean enough.)

The sight of Renee having sex had been scary for Bella, but Bella figured that that was just because she was a kid. Bella knew that, as a young girl, _she_ wasn't supposed to have anything to do with sex—that it was a private thing between adults—but that didn't mean that sex was bad in and of itself. (It was the radical age of "today," after all.)

When Bella finally looked the word "whore" up in the dictionary, what she read just confirmed her conclusions. Because if a whore was someone who enjoyed having sex, and adults all said that sex was enjoyable, then wasn't everyone a whore? Her young mind was offended at the flagrant hypocrisy at work, even if she couldn't have articulated it in so many words.

Thus, Bella, at the tender age of seven, decided that she didn't give a fuck (in her mother's terminology) if her mother was a "whore."

People weren't supposed to go around judging each other anyway.

It was a while before Bella realized that there might have been more to her mother being a "whore" than enjoying sex. She eventually saw enough money changing hands to understand what was really going on.

But, she (now at the cynical age of twelve) reasoned, if a whore was a person who accepted favors in exchange for sex, then what was the difference between a person who rewarded his wife for doing the dishes with a "quick roll in the hay" (as witnessed, for instance, on one of the many sitcoms that Bella had watched) than a guy who did the same for cold, hard cash?

Whatever the wisdom of that conclusion, the fact that Bella had already reached it by the age of twelve does seem a little fucked up. But then, as every historian of sex knows, children are much more sheltered these days. Families used to sleep together in one big room, limitations on space and warmth limiting the right to privacy. Thus, children of yore were probably much more familiar with sexual intimacy than they are today, no doubt overhearing it on occasion. Their experience on the farm would have also provided ample opportunities to witness animals engaged in the act.

Nevertheless, there is something to be said for the preservation of innocence. For the notion that a child should get to be a child for as long as possible. A person will find out soon enough just how brutal and awful the world is. No need to rush it.

And it wasn't the mechanics of sex that were really the problem where Bella was concerned. Kindergartners know that much nowadays. It was seeing the steaminess of it. It was seeing the way that her mother was treated by her clients. Seeing the bloody lips and the bruised cheeks and the ruined mascara. It was seeing the way men would grab at her mother's body—like her mother was just a piece of meat—before they disappeared into her mother's room.

It was the way that the men would look Bella up and down and the things that they'd say to her.

And yes, it was a growing terror that she'd wind up just like her mother. Because the comments from her mother's clients were getting worse. And her mother wasn't doing a damn thing about it.

Every summer, before Renee would send Bella back to Forks, she would extract a promise from Bella to say nothing to daddy about Renee's activities. "Don't want to make daddy jealous," Renee would say.

At first, that made sense to Bella. Charlie didn't have nearly as many friends as Renee, and Bella didn't want to hurt his feelings.

Once Bella figured out what Renee was actually doing, she was all the more determined to keep her mouth shut.

Bella would even test her father now and then. "What would you do if you had a friend who broke the law?" she'd ask. "I'd arrest him," he'd reply, without so much as a blink.

So Bella held her tongue, determined to say nothing, even when the prospect of returning to her mother at the end of every summer began to get harder and harder for Bella to face.

Bella told herself that Renee needed her. And it was true: Every September, Bella would return to Phoenix to find her mother a mess, skinnier, drinking more, and, Bella suspected, doing drugs. The apartment was always a wreck, littered with empty bottles of liquor, boxes of takeout, and dirty clothes. And knowing that Bella's father always gave her some cash when she left Forks, the landlord would be waiting for Bella to turn over the rent that Renee had failed to pay.

Renee needed Bella. Whenever one of Renee's boyfriends worked her over, Bella was the one who dressed the wounds. Bella was the one who paid the bills, taking the money out of Renee's purse.

Unfortunately, this supply of money began to dwindle as Renee blew more and more of it on liquor and—as Bella became increasingly certain—various illicit substances.

Bella only tried to steal from one of her mother's clients. He caught her in the act and Renee had to let him go without charging.

They were very lucky that the confrontation ended there. He was pretty clear about the compensation he expected to receive for this breach of his trust. And this compensation involved Bella.

And God help her, Bella thought about agreeing. Because they needed the money. The rent was overdue, again, and the landlord was threatening to kick them out.

If he would pay—if this guy would agree to pay extra for Bella, then maybe—

Bella's stomach rolled.

She was only fourteen, but she had developed early. This wasn't the first time one of her mother's clients had made her an offer like this—

But he didn't have enough money. Not in his wallet anyway.

It wouldn't be worth it.

Maybe someone else.

The next day, when Bella came home from school, the door of the apartment had a new lock and an eviction notice was posted.

For the next two months, Bella and her mother lived in a car. They would move the car around every now and then to avoid attention, and wash up in gas station restrooms.

At first, it wasn't that bad. Renee was making less money—working in an alley didn't pay as well as working out of an apartment—but at least she was working. Bella felt like shit, cleaning her mother up to go to work every night. But Bella told herself that if Renee could just make enough money for them to get back on their feet, it would all work out.

But that turned out to be just a pipe dream, because Renee was arrested.

It wasn't Renee's first arrest, and Bella knew the drill. But in the past, Bella at least had a shitty apartment to go home too.

She did her the best she could. She started washing up at school instead of the gas station, and she stretched her last twenty dollars as far as it would go. She even had a plan for when that ran out—she was going to start begging.

It all fell apart though.

Bella was supposed to move the car at least twice a day. But it was just so hard to find places to park it, and she ended up staying in one spot for too long.

When she realized that it had been towed, Bella thought about spending the night on the street. She had even picked out an alley—her mother worked there sometimes—but it was already occupied by the time she got there.

Alone, frightened and uncertain, Bella considered her options. There was a shelter on Sycamore. But was that really what she wanted to do? Was this her life now?

"Hey baby, need a place to stay?"

A chill ran down Bella's spine at the silky tone.

Turning, Bella eyed the gentleman making the offer. She knew what he was. She recognized the look.

"I'm ok," she said, hoping that her voice didn't give away just how frightened she was.

"Are you sure?" the gentleman—the pimp—smiled in a way that made something twist inside of Bella.

Renee had just barely managed to steer clear of guys like this. More than a few of her bruises had come from gentlemen objecting to what they saw as an intrusion upon their territory on Renee's part.

"My dad's coming to get me," Bella said. "He's a cop." She added that last part defiantly, and she could tell by the look on the pimps face that he wasn't buying it.

"You shouldn't wait out on the street."

"I'm not. I'm just—" Bella looked around. "I just needed some air before I got some dinner." She jerked her head at a diner across the way. "But, uh, thanks. It was nice to meet you." Bella turned in order to cross the street.

"Anytime you need my help, I'll be around," the pimp threw after her.

"Yeah, thanks," Bella said, not bothering to look back as she quickened her stride.

Once inside the diner, Bella went straight to the public phone in the back.

And not knowing what else to do, she placed a collect call to her father.

To say that Bella's father was livid would be an understatement. Charlie called in a favor with the local police department and had a patrol car pick Bella up and take her to a hotel. A ticket to Forks was waiting for her at the airport the following day. Bella left Phoenix, never to return.

Charlie didn't understand why Bella didn't call him sooner, but that mattered less to him than making sure that Renee never got her hands on Bella again.

Unfortunately, an accident on an isolated mountain road a few years later put Charlie in the hospital. The Cullens took Bella in, and while Edward wasn't exactly amicable towards the girl, at least he didn't go out of his way to antagonize her. He was capable of at least some humanity, and he appreciated that Bella was going through a hard time with her father in the hospital. Bella was indeed distressed, but she was reassured by the realization that the Cullens would take care of her.

So when Renee showed up at the Cullens' door, Bella knew that it was bad news.

Since leaving Phoenix, Bella had come to realize that the sense of loss she felt whenever she thought about her mother wasn't so much because she missed _Renee_ , but because she missed the _idea_ of a mother.

Bella saw the way Esme treated her children—even Edward, Esme's stepson—and Bella realized that she wanted someone to take care of her like that.

Renee had never been a mother to Bella, not really.

And it made Bella a little sick, too, seeing her mother standing in the Cullens' doorway, in tight dress that revealed much too much skin and gaudy make-up, explaining how she'd found out about Charlie's accident— _had she been keeping tabs on Charlie this whole time?_ —and she just _had_ to come check on her "poor baby girl."

It didn't help that Renee running her eyes over Carlisle as she spoke, with a calculating look that Bella knew all too well.

Bella couldn't help feeling a touch of panic—and revulsion—at the notion that Carlisle might actually be interested.

But then Bella saw Renee's eyes flicker Edward, who was still a month away from his eighteenth birthday

And then, God help her, to _Emmett._ Emmett, who looked mature for his age, but was still only fourteen. _Fourteen_.

Bella knew that she had to get her mother away from the Cullens as fast as possible.

So even though she knew that it was probably a mistake, Bella took left with Renee, the two of them returning to the house that Bella shared with Charlie.

"This will be so nice," Renee said, puttering around the kitchen, looking through the cabinets. "We'll be just like two peas in a pod. Like old times."

"You can't turn any tricks here," Bella said.

Renee frowned at her. "Oh, I don't do that anymore, honey. I got clean." Renee smiled. "Just for you."

Renee had lied to Bella so many times that Bella had difficulty believing her. Bella wanted her to be telling the truth though, so she decided that not to listen to her doubts.

 _Three weeks_. That was how long it took for the rumors to start circulating. Three measly, short weeks.

The names being bandied about at first were not all that surprising, a few married men with shaky marriages and the local drunks.

"It's nothing," Renee told Bella. Just mean-spirited town folk with small minds.

Bella was suspicious, but Renee was still coming home every night. She'd be back by midnight, drunk, and with a different guy dropping her off every night, but so what? Why shouldn't Renee get to have a little fun? Who was a seventeen year old girl to say otherwise?

Then, one night, Renee didn't come home at all. When she finally staggered into the kitchen at eight o'clock the following morning, she looked like hell. She looked, in fact, at least two decades older than the age listed on her license.

"What happened?" Bella asked.

Renee smirked. "Just some fun, honey. Just some fun."

The next day, Monday, the rumors were flying around the school like wildfire.

The number kept changing, as did the names—though Edward Cullen's kept popping up—the details varying depending on who was telling the story.

According to one version, the Chief's ex had fucked five varsity jocks, taking them one at a time. Another story said it was seven. One version said she had let three of them fuck her at once.

The age of consent in Washington State was sixteen, and all of the boys in question were sixteen or older. But they were still in high school. And while it was pretty obvious that money had changed hands, no one wanted to press charges, not when it meant dragging the names of respectable families through the mud.

So one day, when Bella was at school, three of Charlie's deputies invited themselves into Charlie's house, "helped" Renee pack, and "escorted" her out of town. They assured her that she would be arrested on sight if she dared showed her face again.

When Bella got home that afternoon, one of the deputies was waiting for her. He explained what had happened as nicely as possible.

"You can go back to the Cullens, right?" the deputy asked.

"Uh yeah, of course," Bella replied, shrugging her shoulders and staring at the ground, because there was no way that she could look this guy in the face, not now.

"You need anything, you just let us know."

"I don't need anything," Bella said.

"But if you do—"

"Sure." Bella nodded.

But there was no fucking fucking fucking way that she would ever go to him—or any of the other deputies—for help.

And there was no way that Bella could go back to the Cullens, either. Not with Edward's name being bandied about as one of the boys who had hooked up with Renee.

So Bella decided to just keep her mouth shut. It wasn't like anyone gave a fuck, anyway. School was even shittier than normal. She could hardly look Alice in the face.

And Bella was almost eighteen. She just had to make it another week to the end of the school year, then through the summer. She told herself that everything would blow over by fall.

But it didn't. It just got worse.

And then Port Angeles happened.

After that, Bella wasn't just the daughter of the whore who'd seduced the boys of Forks, she was the Jezebel who cried rape, smearing the reputations of the golden boys even more.

Bella's last year in Forks was hell.

The thing is, she didn't really care about the opinions of Forks _hoi polloi_. "Fuck em," she thought. So what if Suzie Homemaker was angry that Bella's mother had fucked her husband? Suzie Homemaker was a goddamned hypocrite who'd raised a rapist for a son.

The thing that got to Bella—the thing that just tore out her heart—was watching Alice write "whore" across her locker. It was watching Edward turn around in that alley, going back to his car to get some condoms, leaving her in the hands of rapists. She and Edward had never been friends, but—

But _fuck_. How do you do that to someone?

And it was all her mother's fault. Her fucking mother. Her bitch, whore of her mother.

If only Renee had just stayed away. If only Renee had never come to Forks.

If only Edward had never fucked her.

Over the years, Bella had come to accept the fact that her mother was a fuck up. It made no sense to be angry at Renee for acting according to her nature.

Bella had even come to accept the fact that her best friend's brother had fucked her mother—that he had _paid_ her for the service—because deep down, all men were the same. It was just their nature.

So no.

No, Bella didn't want to hear Edward's explanation. His _excuses._

It was bad enough that Bella had to sit in this car of his, in this dress borrowed from Alice (fucking _Alice_ ), listening to Edward's version of what happened that night in Port Angeles.

Because who the fuck did he think he was?

 _A fucking hero?_ A goddamn, fucking hero.

 _Fuck him_.

He was the one who sent the police?

He was the one who saved her?

 _FUCK HIM_.

And what—? Did he actually expect her to feel _thankful_?!

He could go fuck himself.

Because Bella didn't give a shit—

And she didn't believe him—

And even if he was telling the truth— _fuck him!_

How dare he?

This was Bella's story. This was Bella's life. Bad shit had happened to her, but that was just the way things were. It was bad luck, or what the Greeks called bad _Tyche_.

And every Greco-Roman philosopher said that you couldn't do anything about _Tyche_ except try to survive it. A person's ability to weather the storm was what really revealed his or her true character.

And Bella was strong. She stood up in the face of adversity. Nothing could touch her.

No one helped her. No one. Not ever. She survived because she was strong and she didn't need anyone.

In point of fact, she survived _because_ she didn't need anyone. Because people weren't trustworthy. Not even her father—otherwise he never would have wrapped his tree around that car.

And now Edward was telling her that she _did_ need him. That he _had_ helped her.

 _Well, fuck that._

And now he was going to try and rewrite what had happened with her mother.

No. Absolutely not.

She wouldn't allow it.

So Bella sat in that car with Edward, willing him to just shut his fucking mouth.

And in her head, it wasn't Edward she was picturing with her mother, it was her mother's vile clients, and they were eyeing Bella up and down, offering to pop her cherry and asking her if she'd like a daddy.

"It wasn't your fault," Bella said, desperate to stop the words from coming out of Edward's mouth, willing to say anything if only he'd stop talking.

"What are you talking about?" Edward asked, the self-loathing in his voice plain enough for even Bella to hear.

"You were only seventeen. She took advantage of you."

"I was drunk—and dumb—but I shouldn't have put myself in that situation in the first place."

"It doesn't matter."

"How can you say that?"

"It's the past. What's past is past."

"Are you out of your fucking mind? It's obvious how it all hurt you."

"Hurt me?" Bella asked, her voice dangerously high-pitched. "How was I hurt?" _It was nothing_ , Bella told herself. _It was nothing at all_.

"Your life was destroyed."

Bella laughed darkly, feeling all of a sudden like she was strangely removed from the conversation—like Edward was talking to someone else about someone else. " _That_ didn't destroy my life. Not even close."

"It cost you Alice. And then there was Port Angeles. I can't even imagine what it was like for you senior year."

"That's right, you _can't_ imagine." Bella wrapped her arms around herself, pulling the cloak that Alice had given her tighter around her shoulders.

She was just cold—that was why she was shaking. She was cold.

She needed to get inside her apartment and warmed up.

She needed to get out of that car. Get away from Edward.

 _Get out_ , she told herself, eyeing the door handle. Why was she still sitting there?

"And you're fucked up because of it," Edward said, yanking at his tie.

Edward wasn't in the least bit cold; he was burning up.

He felt like he was being burned alive.

"Don't tell me you aren't," he said, "because I know that you're lying. Those guys tonight, Cheney and Stefanos, they were staring at you all night long and you didn't even give them a second glance. Don't even get me started on Jacob. You won't let a guy get within shooting distance, and it's all because of Port Angeles." Edward slammed a hand against the steering wheel. "Because of what happened with your mother."

Bella closed her eyes, wondering if all of this was maybe happening to someone else, because no way could she be sitting here in this car talking to Edward fucking Cullen about things like this. "It's not your fault," Bella said again, and it sounded to her like it was someone else saying it, the words far away.

"I knew your mother was no good. I told my parents not to let you go home with her."

Bella's stomach lurched—because _no_ , he was trying to rewrite yet another thing, and she couldn't let him do it.

"I told them that she was going to hurt you," Edward continued, "but they said that she was your family and that you needed her." Edward made a disgusted noise. "Like _family_ means shit."

"So why'd you fuck her then?" Bella hissed, the words spilling out of her mouth without any conscious thought on her part.

She instantly regretted it, because she couldn't—

She _couldn't_ hear his reply.

Her hands were rising unbidden to her ears to block out the answer when she heard:

"I didn't."

Bella froze.

"I didn't have sex with her," Edward clarified.

And Bella felt something erupt inside of her.

Because he was a _FUCKING LIAR!_

She wanted to fly at him, to claw his lying tongue from his mouth.

But she didn't move. She _couldn't_ move.

Edward went on, the words tumbling from his mouth. "I thought I had, you know. All of these years, I thought that I had. But Tyler—do you remember him?"

Bella didn't say anything.

"He came into the hospital the other day. It was so random. We haven't seen each other for years. We're not friends. I don't even know why we ever hung out."

Bella felt a tearing sensation in her chest.

"Tyler just showed up, out of the blue. And d'you know what he said?" Edward paused, but only for a second. "He said that I passed out that night at the motel. They had to carry me out. And the next day when they said—when they were all bragging about what had happened—they said that I had—you know."

Tears were pricking in the corners of Bella's eyes.

 _Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck him._

Edward cleared his throat. "I just—I just believed them when they said that I had fucked her. Which now—now that I know the truth—I can't believe that I trusted them. I fucking _hated_ her. She reminded me so much of— She reminded me of someone. It didn't make any sense, but I believed them."

 _He's lying_ , Bella told herself.

But he didn't sound like he was lying.

Edward banged his fist against the dashboard. " _Fuck_. Do you have any idea how I felt?"

Like _he_ was the victim in all of this?

Like Bella was supposed to feel sorry for _him_?

"Do you know how much I hated myself?" Edward asked.

Bella didn't give a damn.

"It was like confirmation that I was everything my mother said that I was. A piece of shit."

And a crack suddenly appeared in Bella's rage, because goddammit, she knew what that was like, what it felt like to be told that you were a piece of shit, to believe it.

"Oh Jesus, fuck," Edward sputtered, leaning forward to rest his head against the steering wheel. "I don't know. I don't know why I was even in that room."

Drunk or not, he should have said something. He should have objected.

He shouldn't have been there in the first place.

As for Bella, the sight of Edward like this—collapsed over the steering wheel—made something uncoil inside of her.

Whether or not he was lying about what happened in that motel room, it was clearly tearing him up. She didn't think that he was faking that.

"I'm so sorry," he said, this time sounding like he was on the edge of something dark and horrible.

And feeling returned to Bella's frozen limbs.

She could feel the tears coursing down her cheeks, and she turned, not wanting Edward to see her dashing them away.

"It's alright," she rasped, not because it was, in fact, alright but because she _wanted_ it to be alright.

Or maybe that was a lie. Because what Bella really wanted right now was for everything to go back to the way it used to be, back before Edward rewrote everything she thought she knew, before she gave a fuck about how miserable he looked right now and whether or not he was lying to her about everything.

Most importantly, she couldn't let herself fall apart in front of him.

She _wouldn't_ let herself fall apart.

She felt a steely resolve wash over her.

 _Nothing's changed_ , she told herself. _Not really_. _I'm still me._

Edward still hadn't lifted his head up from the steering wheel.

But Bella wasn't in the mood to try to comfort him.

"I'm going to go inside now," she whispered.

And Edward stirred at that, moving to climb out of the car and rushing around to meet Bella. She didn't wait for him to open her door, but she let him walk her up to the door of her apartment. He stood behind her then, waiting while she unlocked the door, and when she turned around to bid him a good night, she was startled by the expression on his face.

He looked dead.

"Hey," Bella reached up and hesitated, a hair's breadth away from touching his cheek. "It's alright."

This time she was saying it not because she wanted to make herself feel better but because the look on Edward's face sickened her.

Edward just gazed back at her, his eyes lifeless.

Bella swallowed. "I forgive you."

She wasn't exactly lying. She wasn't exactly telling the truth either. But she wanted to make Edward feel better—that much was true—and if saying that she forgave him helped to make him feel better, then it was what she wanted.

Because this dark thing hanging over Edward was malevolent—Bella felt in her bones that it was evil—and it was spreading. Whatever it was, it would infect her too if she couldn't stop it.

"Whatever happened between us in the past doesn't matter. The past doesn't matter. It's over and done with."

"Don't say that," Edward told her, his eyes glassy.

"It's true," Bella said, and this time she knew that she was lying.

He shook his head. "You're broken. I know it."

"I'm not broken."

"Yes, you are."

 _Was she?_

Maybe.

But if so, it wasn't because of any _one_ thing.

It was because of _everything_. All of it. Everything that had happened to Bella in Phoenix and everything that had happened to her in Forks and Port Angeles.

And maybe that was just the way life was.

But so what? So what if Bella was broken? She didn't hate herself. She wasn't perfect, but she was content. She _thought_ that she was content.

 _Who was Edward to pass judgment on her?_

If only he knew the truth.

If only he knew that _he_ was the prey and _she_ was the hunter.

Bella was supposed to record the two of them together, setting her phone up to capture the video while he was distracted.

"I'll surprise him with the recording," Tanya had said. "And tell him about our little game. That you were my gift to him."

All of this time, Bella had been playing hard to get—she was _supposed_ to be playing hard to get—which wasn't difficult for Bella. It was easy for her to feign reluctance, because all of this—trying to seduce someone, and _Edward_ , of all people—meant going against her nature.

But Tanya said it was just a game. Tanya said that she and Edward used to do things like this all of the time, playing out little scenarios.

One time, Edward hired two men to kidnap Tanya. The men surprised Tanya in a garage and pushed her into the back of a van. They delivered her to Edward, an angry gangster with a taste for ravaging "innocent" young women.

And Tanya had loved every minute of it. "I asked Edward to do it," she said.

But this time, Tanya was the one doing the hiring. _A reluctant virgin_. Delivered to Edward's doorstep.

Bella accepted Tanya's proposal because of the money. Bella needed it. Her father needed it.

But as time went by, Bella had started to wonder if Edward would be hurt to learn the truth.

Which was stupid. Why would he be hurt? He played games like this with Tanya all of the time. He would be _pleased_ by Tanya's ploy.

For some reason, Bella couldn't help feeling annoyed at the thought of that. Because who the fuck was Tanya to get the credit for all of this? Bella was the one doing the work.

 _And I'll be the one he's with,_ Bella thought.

Tanya couldn't have Edward anymore. Bella knew that Edward had cut Tanya out of his life. Bella didn't know his reasons for doing so, but she knew that Tanya was out in the cold.

 _Tanya needed me to get to him._

It was fucked up, but Bella couldn't help feeling a twisted sense of pride over that.

Bella also felt a secret need inside of her, a need to prove that she was "normal." That she could have sex, could _want_ to have sex, and enjoy it.

It was just so much work pretending to be normal. The frumpy clothes she wore all of the way through high school and undergrad just made her look like a victim. Since entering grad school, she had been forcing herself to wear more revealing clothes, and to laugh, and to meet guys' eyes. To act like nothing was wrong.

She just wished that she didn't have to fake it.

And, despite what Bella told herself, she didn't really despise Edward as much as she wanted to.

Truth be told, Bella was rather more attracted to Edward than she would've been comfortable admitting.

There was a stirring of genuine affection.

And now, looking at him standing on her doorstep, his shoulders slumped and his face wearing that dead expression, Bella couldn't deny wishing she could make him feel better. Because it hurt her to see him hurting, just like it would have hurt her to see any wounded animal.

She kissed him.

It wasn't a very graceful kiss. She pressed her lips to his in an unpracticed way and paused, waiting for him to react, to do something—

As for Edward, it took him a minute to realize—

He was confused and then—

And then he was _wanting_.

Moving his lips against Bella's, Edward groaned as her tongue swept his upper lip. A minute later, he deepened the kiss, pulling Bella's hips towards his.

They stayed like that for a while, Edward pressing Bella up against the door as her arms locked around his neck, this kiss unlike any they had shared before, the intimacies they'd shared that night apparently having stripped away some sort of barrier between them.

They were both panting when they broke apart.

Staring up into Edward's eyes, Bella whispered "You win."

Not understanding, Edward cocked his head to the side. "Won? What did I win?"

"The contest."

Edward blinked. "What do you mean?"

"You were right. I don't want to go on like this."

"Like what?"

Bella's voice, when she answered, had a pleading note to it that he'd not heard from her before. "Spend the night? Please? Will you spend the night with me?"

Edward's heart skipped a beat.

He couldn't possibly have heard her correctly.

And yet—

 _God_ , he wanted her.

But he couldn't. Not now. Not like this.

He pulled away. "You've had a rough night," Edward told Bella. "I don't think you know what you're saying."

The pleading tone in Bella's voice was replaced by a hint of scorn: "I want you to corrupt me. Isn't that what you want to hear?" She almost sounded angry.

Edward shook his head.

"I want you to _fuck_ me." Bella was definitely angry now. She dug her fingers into Edward's arms so that he couldn't pull away. "I'm on birth control already so we don't need—"

"No—"

"No?!" Bella dropped her hands and laughed, a short, bitter bark. "No? He says 'no.' My mother was good enough for him. But not me."

"It's not like that," Edward tried to explain, angry that she would say that about her mother—he _hadn't_ —and desperate for her to understand.

"Right." Bella straightened her back. "Of course it isn't."

"You should be with someone better than me," Edward said, hating himself.

Bella scoffed.

But Edward was telling the truth.

Bella deserved to be with someone better.

And it was tearing him up inside, because Edward had never wanted to be with a woman the way that he wanted to be with Bella. Which is to say that he didn't want to just fuck her. He wanted to see her, to know her, to do whatever the fuck it is that normal people do in a relationship.

But he couldn't think about that right now. He had to fix this—fix whatever had just happened with Bella. "Look," he said, "it's just not a good idea. Not after everything we've gone through tonight." He paused. "Tomorrow, though. We'll talk tomorrow, yeah?"

Bella took a moment to reply. "Fine. Tomorrow."

She didn't sound as very mollified, but Edward was willing to take what he could get. "Good. That's good."

He reached for Bella's hand, but she stepped out of reach.

Sighing, Edward said, "Take care of yourself tonight."

Hitching a shoulder, Bella said, "Yeah, goodnight."

A minute later, Bella was inside her apartment, and Edward was staring at the closed door.

He stood rooted in place for another full minute before he forcing himself to move. Turning slowly, he made his way back to his car and then collapsed in the driver seat. Several more minutes passed before he started the ignition and pulled away from the curb.

He had made the right decision. _You're_ making _the right decision_ , Edward told himself as he drove to his apartment.

He wanted nothing more than to turn right around and go back to Bella's, but he knew that was a mistake.

 _It's a mistake having anything to do with her at all_ , his conscience told him.

As much as Edward had been trying, he was still just a fuck up.

 _There's no way that you're ever going to be good enough for Bella_.

He wasn't good enough for anyone.

 _Hell, you were daydreaming of throwing yourself out of a window just a few weeks ago_.

What the fuck was he doing with a woman like Bella?

 _If Bella's lucky_ , Edward thought, _I'll wrap my car around a light pole and she'll never hear from me again_.

He chuckled perversely at the image in his head.

 _What a nice funeral they'll have. Everyone sitting around and lying about what a good person I was_.

By the time that Edward had reached his apartment, he had decided that the best course of action was to get completely and thoroughly trashed.

Edward didn't drink a great deal, wary as he was of accidentally turning one addiction into another. So all he had was beer.

By his fourth can, he was asking himself why he was going to so much trouble to avoid becoming an alcoholic.

Why not chuck it all and become a drinker? A high-functioning addict?

And why stop with alcohol?

Why bother avoiding any of his vices?

The contest with Bella was over, after all. Edward had won.

He might as well indulge himself.

Edward fired up his computer and pulled up the first of the pictures that Bella had sent to him.

But as he undid his zipper, it occurred to him that if he was really going to give into his temptations, then he was wasting his time with amateur girlie pictures.

If he really wanted to prove himself to the world—prove just how little he deserved Bella—then he knew what he had to do.

It was still fairly early. Barely nine o'clock. Time enough to pick up a woman or two. Or three.

Ah hell, might as well backslide into his addiction and ruin his career all in one fell swoop.

He'd go back to the gallery. He'd have his pick of women there, women he worked with, the wives of men he worked with. Fucking any one of them would be enough to get him fired.

 _Take one in the bathroom, another in the coat closet_. Maybe take one up against that fucking sculpture that Bella had liked so much.

Make sure that everyone at the party heard just how Edward liked to make a woman scream his name.

Give them a really fucking good reason to get rid of him.

But he was too drunk to drive. So Edward hailed a taxi, and as he was climbing inside, he got a text on his phone.

It was a picture of Bella at Breaking Dawn.

 **AN:**

 **I didn't go through anything like the Bella in this story when she was growing up, but her notions about sex and prostitution are based on my memories of what I thought about these subjects during my youth at the various ages specified here, though my beliefs weren't as extreme as Bella's. I hope that my portrayal of a young mind is credible.**

 **P.S. I hope it was clear that Edward has NEVER been driven by incestuous feelings towards his mother. I am NOT a Freudian. However, when Edward thought that he had slept with Renee, he WAS afraid that he had, in fact, been driven by feelings of this sort, thanks to his mother's crazy talk (and the degree to which Freudian notions have permeated our society).**

 **Every once in a while, I worry that this story is coming off as exploitative. I hope that that isn't the case. The fucked up comments of Edward's mother on the prior point were inspired by things that were said to me by a family member when I was growing up and I am using this story to explore the question of how people act out childhood traumas (you may note that similar themes cropped up in** _ **Gothic**_ **).**


	21. Chapter 21

**Censored: The following chapter is censored for sexual content. The uncensored chapter can be found on Fictionpad.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

 _"In a brothel where an empty bed was always reserved for her, with sheets still reeking from the last encounter, there she stood in the door, waiting for men to mount her, naked, with nipples gold-tipped_ " Juvenal on the emperor's wife, Translator unknown

Chapter 21

Edward remembered all too well his last conversation with Tanya.

He was sitting in Breaking Dawn, nursing his drink, and trying to figure out just what the fuck he was doing with Bella Swan.

"Eddie," a voice purred in his ear.

At the sound of her voice, he tensed involuntarily. He had cut her out of his life for a reason.

She was twirling a champagne flute between her fingers as she took the seat beside him. "Whatever happened to you and your little doe?" she asked.

He tried to deflect her questions about Tanya.

Tanya tsked. "You would let something like that go? It's not often you have such an opportunity."

Edward shook his head. "I don't know what you mean."

Bella would never let him anywhere near her.

"You're wrong," he told Tanya. "She's incorruptible."

And Edward was shocked to hear Tanya emit what sounded like a giggle.

"Well," she said, "we'll just have to try extra _hard_." Her hand brushed against Edward's thigh, emphasizing her last word. "Let's consider it an experiment, shall we?"

Edward stared at the ice melting in his glass. What Tanya was suggesting was monstrous.

 _But you're a monster, aren't you?_ he thought.

He stood up.

"Where're you going?" Tanya asked. "We need to plan your seduction."  
"I don't need your help," he told her.

But maybe he was wrong, because here was a text from Tanya Denali with a picture of Bella and Tanya kissing at a bar that was clearly Breaking Dawn.

It was the last in a series of texts and voicemails from Tanya over the last several weeks, all of which Edward had ignored, and all of them inquiries into Edward's success with Bella's so-called corruption.

Cursing, Edward dialed Bella's number, but she didn't pick up.

He had already given the cab driver the address for the gallery. "Change of plans," Edward said, and gave the address for Breaking Dawn as he dialed Bella's number.

When she didn't answer, he tried texting: _What r u doing at Breaking Dawn?_

He didn't even bother waiting for a reply before dialing Tanya's number. She didn't answer either, so Edward sent Bella another text: _Don't do anything stupid_. It took him several tries to get the message typed out, his fingers fumbling over the letters.

It was obvious what had happened. Pissed at him, Bella had gone to Breaking Dawn looking for trouble. And she had found it in the form of one Tanya Denali.

Edward was staring at his phone, willing Bella, or even Tanya, to reply in some way. So he didn't notice when the cab stopped.

"We're here," the driver barked.

Edward threw some cash in the front seat and, in his rush to get out of the car and into the bar, almost tripped and fell on his face. Yeah, he was still a little drunk, and damn near losing his mind at the thought of Tanya handing Bella off to one of Breaking Dawn's regulars.

Once, inside, he looked around, squinting in the dim light.

Neither Bella nor Tanya were anywhere in sight. But that only increased Edward's panic.

He made his way over to the bartender.

"You see Tanya here tonight?" Edward asked. "With a brunette?"

"Hey," the bartender greeted him, ignoring the question. "Haven't seen you for a while."

Edward wanted to shake him. "Tanya?"

"Second floor." The bartender jerked his head towards the stairwell. "You know the room."

Edward felt like he was going to be sick, nauseous from the alcohol and the realization of what was likely happening upstairs at that very moment. "The brunette went with her?"

The bartender smirked. "Yep."

Not giving into a sudden urge to wipe that smirk off the bartender's face, Edward sprinted towards the stairs, stumbling again as he mounted the steps two at a time.

The corridor at the top of the staircase was lined with several closed doors, but Edward knew which room they would be in. Tanya always chose the same one.

Edward didn't even pause to knock before he tried the handle.

He was reassured to find that it wasn't locked, for surely Tanya would have taken that precaution, but his heart leapt into his throat when he saw what was awaiting him inside.

The décor was familiar. Edward had spent many an hour taking his leisure amidst the finery, the room being furnished sparely but richly. The special clientele who paid to use these rooms expected as much. The bed was an antique, with elaborate scrollwork in the black walnut headboard and footboard, convenient cutouts in both facilitating the attachment of handcuffs and the like. The royal blue damask linens matched the Louis XV chair in the corner and the heavy drapery covering the lone window. Wood paneling ran along the lower half of the walls, topped by gold and cream striped wallpaper. The flamboyant palette was reflected in the carpet, with an intricate design involving a tracery of royal blue vines against a background of gold and cream.

The room was garish. The perfect backdrop for Edward to fuck a woman (or women, as the case may be). On the bed, on the chair, on the rug, against the wall.

At the moment, however, it was Bella draped across the lurid bedspread, her head thrown back in ecstasy as Tanya's head moved between her thighs.

Edward blinked, wondering for a second if he was drunker than he thought.

But the sound of Bella's moan snapped him out of his stupor.

Edward slammed the door behind him, too shocked to do more, but it was enough to catch the women's attention.

Their heads snapped up, both of them gazing in his direction, Bella still panting, her eyes hooded, while Tanya smiled coyly, wide-eyed and clearly enjoying the moment.

"Want to join us?" Tanya asked.

Seething inside, Edward somehow managed to rein in his temper. He told himself that he should just be grateful that both women were still clothed, at least for the most part. Bella's panties had clearly been discarded, but she was in the same dress from earlier in the night, and Tanya was in a shimmery flapper-esque affair.

"You forgot to lock the door," he pointed out as he did just that.

"We were waiting for you," Tanya explained, sitting back on her haunches, still between Bella's legs.

Dragging his eyes away from the creamy expanse of Bella's thighs and the hem of her rumpled dress, the fabric just barely covering the area where Tanya had been directing her attention, Edward glared at the latter, closer to hating the woman than ever before.

He quickly strode towards the bed. "Let's go," he said, grabbing Bella's arm and pulling her upright.

"So soon?" Tanya complained, following Bella off of the bed. "She didn't even get to cum."

"We're getting out of here," Edward declared, and led the way to the door, tugging Bella behind him.

"She's staying," Tanya insisted, grabbing Bella's other arm and tugging in the opposite direct.

Ready to argue, Edward whipped around, only to be brought up short by what he saw.

Tanya had pulled Bella back into her arms, cradling her.

And gripping Bella's hand now, Edward watched as Tanya pushed down the straps of Bella's dress.

"You want to stay, don't you Bella?" Tanya asked, exposing Bella right breast.

Breathing heavily, Bella's head fell back on Tanya's shoulder. Bella watched Edward through lidded eyes as Tanya cupped her breast. "I do."

Running a tongue up Bella's neck, Tanya nipped her ear. "And if Edward doesn't want to help us then we'll find someone else downstairs instead, won't we?"

"Yes," Bella breathed, as Tanya's other hand slid over her stomach.

A knot of fury formed in Edward's chest.

"No." His grip on Bella's hand tightened.

"Don't tell me that you don't like what you're seeing," Tanya taunted him. She tsked. "Bella's afraid that you don't want her, but I know that isn't true." Tanya turned so that her lips were against Bella's ear. "Feel for yourself, Bella. See how much he wants you." And seizing the hand that Edward wasn't holding, Tanya pressed Bella's fingers against his crotch.

And God help him, Edward didn't try to evade them. He hated himself a little for the way that his hips jerked forward when Tanya encouraged Bella grasp Edward's erection through his pants.

"I knew it," Tanya taunted.

"Just because you gave her some shit—" Edward snapped, backing out of their reach then.

He kept hold of Bella's hand though.

"I didn't give her anything!" Tanya spit. "Tell him Bella."

"She didn't," Bella assured him.

"You expect me to believe that you really want this?" Edward asked, directing his question to Bella.

"Wasn't that the point of our contest?" she reminded him, the lust leaving her eyes as she straightened up. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

"No, not this."

 _Not_ like _this at least_ , Edward told himself.

Bella smiled, a cruel twisting of her lips. "Not _me_ , maybe." She laughed. "But you want a virgin. Don't deny it."

"I _do_ want you," Edward corrected, the words rising to his lips unbidden.

Bella blinked, as if she was surprised by his words. But then her gaze softened, and when she spoke, her tone was pliant. "Then take me."

When Edward didn't respond, Bella's temper flared again. Eyes flashing, she glared at him. "Or I'll go downstairs and find someone who will," she warned.

"Show him how much you want him," Tanya interrupted, pushing Bella towards Edward and directing Bella's hands.

And Edward just stood there while the two women pushed the coat off of his shoulders and unbuttoned his shirt. His eyes were on Bella's face as she ran her hands over his chest, which was still covered by an undershirt, but the way that Tanya was nibbling on Bella's shoulder didn't escape his attention.

When Bella pressed her lips to his clavicle, Edward couldn't help but react. Reaching for Bella, meaning to pull her up for a kiss, he was interrupted by Tanya, who pulled Bella back again.

When Tanya made her proposal, Edward tried to object.

"Oh, he's so shy," Tanya chuckled. "Like _he_ 's the virgin. We'll just have to show him how it's done, won't we Bella?"

 _This isn't happening_ , Edward thought to himself. He tried to argue. "She doesn't have to."

He couldn't help noticing how Bella's eyes were heavy with lust, though, and he recalled all of those pictures Bella had sent him. He remembered wishing that he could see her face in the photos—he wanted to know what she looked like as pleasured herself—and something told him that her expression wouldn't be far from the one she was wearing now.

Edward forgot that Tanya was even in the room until he felt her pulling him in for a kiss, her tongue plunging into his mouth.

Edward shoved her back. He wanted Bella.

But then Tanya cooed. "I taste like Bella," she reminded him. "Don't you want to know what she tastes like?"

So Edward pulled Tanya towards him again, this time plunging his tongue into her mouth.

But it was Bella he wanted, not Tanya.

Reaching for Bella again, he was annoyed when Tanya pulled her away.

"I want to play a game," Tanya explained. "You'll enjoy it."

"This isn't—" Edward tried to interrupt.

"If Bella wants us to stop," Tanya anticipated his complaint, "she can stop it. I think we should have a word. Pick a word, Bella. What word do you want to use?"

And without missing a beat, Bella replied. "Caligula."

"We don't have to play any games," Edward tried to argue.

"But it's more fun that way," Tanya objected. "And Bella wants to," she added.

 _You're losing it_ , Edward warned himself, struggling to get a bearing.

And maybe _that's_ why he went along with it— _because_ he was losing it and none of it seemed real.

And it had been so very very long.

And it was just like he remembered.

In that room. With all of those women.

And yet different. Different, yeah, because it was Bella. And because he wasn't the same.

He wasn't the same.

Bella.

But the scene that was unfolding in that room wasn't nice. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't romantic.

Edward could feel a strange pressure building in his chest, and the blood was pounding in his ears, an increasing roar competing with the dull noise of the bar below.

This wasn't sexual excitement, though. It was something else. Something darker.

He felt like the room was spinning faster and faster as the din from the bar below seemed to rise suddenly in pitch.

Edward opened his mouth to protest—

But the look in Bella's eyes stopped him.

And then the room—that had been swaying—suddenly stood transfixed as he stared into the depths of Bella's eyes.

 _What the fuck is happening?_ Edward asked himself. _What the fuck are you_ —

And it all stopped.

Everything.

The room tilted on its axis and stayed frozen there, out of focus.

Edward couldn't move.

None of them could move—it seemed like they were all frozen in place.

A tableau of debauchery.

And then just as suddenly it all came screaming back into focus.

The roaring in Edward's ears was suddenly much louder and the world was spinning again and he wanted—

Just that. He _wanted_.

What had just happened changed nothing. He still wanted Bella. Wanted her badly—so much more than he had even realized.

But his stomach was churning with nausea.

Because _what the fuck had he done_?

What the fuck had he _fucking_ done?

Consummation achieved, pleasure had yet to be obtained. Mid-coitus, Edward found himself incapable of moving. Incapable of anything—

Overcome by the horror of the situation.

What a vulgar spectacle they'd put on.

More like farce than seduction. _A tawdry and lurid performance._

Finally, returned to his senses, a disgusted Edward began to pull away.

 _Fuck Tanya's game._

Only for everything to suddenly get much much worse.

Because the roaring wasn't just in Edward's head.

There was a commotion downstairs, people were shouting with what sounded like panic.

"Police!"

 **AN:**

 **If this chapter was too vague for you, please note that many of the details were censored per reader request.**

 **Readers still annoyed that I made people wait so long for the revelations about the attempted rape and Edward (not) sleeping with Renee should realize (I hope) that the double gut punch was a set-up for this scene at Breaking Dawn.**

 **No, Bella wasn't raped. Recall this evidence that Bella was indeed giving consent:**

"Then take me."

When Edward didn't respond, Bella's temper flared again. Eyes flashing, she glared at him. "Or I'll go downstairs and find someone who will," she warned.

 **Yes, Bella is being. self-destructive. Recall that she is trying to get the money to save her father's life.**

 **Yes, Edward's behavior is reprehensible. He is struggling with addiction and PTSD.**

 **But the notion that a man should somehow "know" to ignore the words coming out of a woman's mouth is insulting as fuck.**

 **What if she was saying 'no'? Should he ignore that as well?**

 **Or do women only have a right to say 'no,' and never 'yes'?**

 **While there's a contradiction in the notion that a woman could/would consent to something that might hurt her, that "consent" could work for something like that, this idea was embedded in** _ **Twilight**_ **'s original storyline—in both Bella's request to be made a vampire (an obvious metaphor for sex)—and it lies at the heart of the entire feminist debate over the sexual revolution.**

 **A woman's right to enjoy sex is a basic feminist tenet. But enjoyment isn't straightforward. We sometimes like things that are, on the face of it, bad for us. So how do we, as feminists, set this contradiction out in terms that don't actually facilitate non-consensual forms of sex/romance (including situations in which women "consent" to participate in harmful relationships because they're being mentally abused)? In other words, how do we give ourselves opportunities to enjoy rough sex without green-lighting rapists?**

 **I've heard people claim that** _ **Fifty Shades**_ **green lights rapists.**

 **That's a real problem. But the solution isn't Christian Sharia, missionary position, vanilla sex, with the government in charge of my vagina and an effort to reenact** _ **The Handmaid's Tale**_ **in real time.**

 **And the solution isn't the over-sexualization and lack of respect for privacy that pervades American society. It isn't this hypercritical way we have of judging a person based on their sexual identity, as if a lack of a certain kind of activity means that you're somehow deficient.**

 **The solution is: Accept that it's messy and deal with it. Bring the self-destructive aspects of sex out into the open and hash out the problems.**

 **This Bella and Edward happen to be a little fucked up. No denying that. Bella's so-called agency looks awfully destructive. Edward's addiction is clouding his judgment. They are going to be working on these issues for the rest of the story.**


	22. Chapter 22

**Censored: The following chapter is censored for sexual content. The uncensored version can be read on Fictionpad.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

" _Our times have torn from us one customary of these letters which we used to exploit in happy days, and Fortune has ensured the impossibility of my writing, or even at al contemplating, anything of that kind. All that remains is a kind of melancholy and the sad type of letter appropriate to these days, but this topic too fails me, for it ought to contain promise of some assistance o consolation in your distress."_ – Cicero _ad Familia_ IV 13 translated by P. G. Walsh

Chapter 22

What had just happened between Edward and Bella wasn't pretty. It wasn't nice. It was dirty and vulgar and, yeah, a little rough.

It wasn't at all like Edward had pictured it—and he had pictured it, alright.

It was brutal and a little sickening.

The worst part was Tanya.

And it wasn't even over yet. They were still mid-coitus, as it were, no hint of pleasure anywhere in sight.

Which was only fitting in such a depraved scene.

When the commotion downstairs rose in pitch.

A cry from just outside the door explained the source of the panic: "Police!"

Edward froze, not understanding—

But Tanya was a flurry of activity, flying from the bed to the far corner of the room.

Confused, Edward pulled away from Bella and began to right his clothing, moving sluggishly despite his panic, fumbling as he tried to get a grip on what was happening.

Tanya had already shoved a chair out of the way and was feeling along the wainscoting.

"What—" Edward started to ask, just as someone began beating on the door.

Edward watched in shock as a portion of the wall in front of Tanya swung back and Tanya stepped through it.

Suddenly grasping the urgency of the situation, Edward reached for Bella's hand and pulled her up from the bed. He began pulling her towards the hole in the wall.

But she wasn't coming along willingly.

"Wait!" she struggled out of Edward's arms.

Darting back to the bed, she grabbed her purse as the noise in the hallway rose to a fever-pitch, and then returned to Edward's side.

He quickly shoved her into the passageway, and followed a beat later. Turning, he fumbled in the dim light, pushing the panel back into place behind him. He ran his fingers along the edge of the opening, and felt what appeared to be a locking mechanism. It took him half of an agonizing minute to figure out how to work it, but Edward engaged the lock just as heard someone break through the door in the room beyond.

He wasn't really expected Tanya to wait for him, and he wasn't disappointed in that regard. She was out of sight, having made her way quickly through the dim passageway.

But Bella had lingered, only a few feet down the narrow crawlspace, and the haggard expression on her face—difficult though it was to see in the murky light—was a mirror of Edward's own.

The two of them hurried to catch up with Tanya, going on instinct as they moved through the dirty cobwebbed space, the meager light coming through cracks in the paneling giving them little to go on.

Panicked though he was, Edward couldn't help wondering if they were making a mistake in trying to flee. They had committed no crimes. Any charges that might be filed against them would have to be dropped.

But even in his muddled state, Edward was sober enough to realize that an arrest—meritless or not—in a place like this, would seriously jeopardize his position at the hospital.

And under no circumstances would he allow Bella to be arrested.

The corridor—what, in fact, seemed to be nothing more or less than a secret passageway—appeared to continue straight on for the span of three or four buildings, the length of the entire block. They stumbled several times, the cluttered space clearly having lain in disuse for some time. Edward had just begun to wonder if there was a way out when he and Bella found Tanya frantically trying to open a door.

Tapping Tanya on the shoulder, Edward positioned himself to have a go at the door. Giving up on the lock, he took a running start, and threw his shoulder at it. Fortunately, the lock had grown brittle with age. It gave way with only a few blows, and Edward ushered Bella and Tanya through the exit and down a set of rickety metal stairs, into what appeared to be an internal parking garage.

Confirming that no one was around to show any interest in their activities, the three made their way down to the street.

They darted across an intersection and waited until they were another block away before daring to spare a glance back at the flashing lights in front of Breaking Dawn.

"What the fuck was that?" Edward asked Tanya at last in a hushed tone, throwing an arm around Bella's shoulders to try to keep her warm as they continued their flight down the street.

"It was a raid, darling."

"I _know_ that. Why were they raiding Breaking Dawn?"

Tanya laughed huskily. "Dirty cops, angry over paltry kickbacks probably."

"It was a speakeasy," Bella concluded, her voice shaking with the cold. "Wasn't it? Back during Prohibition. That's why there was a secret exit."

"Good for us, the owner showed me once," Tanya explained.

"I can't believe you got us into that," Edward chastised her, the chill night air doing a swell job of sobering him up.

" _I_ didn't get you into anything," Tanya retorted angrily. "I _saved_ you." She waved a hand. "Return to Breaking Dawn if you're so disappointed. Let them arrest you."

"Where are we going?" Edward wanted to know.

"What an ungrateful little prig you've become," Tanya sniffed, pulling a change purse with just enough room for a credit card and a few bills out of her cleavage. "We're _going_ somewhere where we can catch a cab."

They paused under a streetlight, waiting for a break in the traffic.

Bella couldn't stop the peal of laughter coming from her lips.

"What?" Edward glanced at her.

"Look at us," she laughed, a hand to her mouth.

Blinking, Edward realized what she meant. Bella was filthy, her face and arms streaked with dirt. Her hair was a mess and cobwebs covered her dress.

Tanya was even worse, her mascara running.

"We have to get out of the cold," Edward said as a shiver ran through his frame.

"No fucking shit," Tanya snapped as they reached the next intersection. This one had more traffic, and Tanya raised a hand to flag down one of the passing cabs.

To Edward's surprise, Bella pulled out of his arms as the cab pulled up.

"There's a bus coming," she said, her eyes on the bus in question, just turning down the street.

"What?" Edward asked. "No, we'll take a cab."

Tanya was already climbing into the vehicle.

But Bella was adamant. "My apartment's out of your way. It doesn't make sense to go together."

Edward wasn't giving in that easily. "It's freezing out here!"

"I'll be okay," Bella insisted, turning towards the bus stop.

"Get in Edward," Tanya ordered from inside the cab. "If the woman wants to take a bus, let her."

"You can't be serious."

" _I_ can't be serious?! Get in the cab Edward! I don't have time for this. I have a flight tomorrow."

"I can't just let her go."

"We got what we wanted from the little bitch, now—"

But Edward was already gone, running to flag down the bus before it could pull away.

Boarding, he realized that he didn't have any cash. "Do you have some change I could borrow?" he asked Bella.

Rolling her eyes, she handed the money over.

"You folks go to a costume party or something?" the driver asked.

"Something like that," Bella replied, before heading to the back of the bus.

Following her, Edward was grateful that the bus was practically deserted. He wasn't in the mood for an audience.

"Why didn't you want to take a cab?" Edward asked once they were seated.

Bella shrugged, looking out of the window. "Didn't feel like it."

"That doesn't make any sense."

Edward waited for Bella to explain herself further, but she didn't appear to be interested in having that particular conversation at the moment.

Staring at the side of her face, smeared with dirt, Edward tried to think of something to say. Something to—

 _To what?_

To make it better.

 _How?_

It all still seemed so unreal. That place. The—

Sex.

And then the police.

Glancing around to make sure that none of the other passengers could overhear their conversation, Edward sighed. "If you're worried about the—" He broke off. "The police, I don't think you have to be. I think it'll be alright."

She continued to stare out the window.

"I don't know why they were interested tonight. I have no idea why that place would draw that kind of thing."

Bella looked at him then, her eyes narrowed, like she was trying to tell if he was lying.

Apparently satisfied with what she saw, she returned her gaze to the window.

"Hey," Edward chided, trying to get her attention again. Taking her hand out of her lap, he rubbed it between his own to warm it up. "You okay?"

Bella shrugged.

So he reached for her chin, wanting to be able to see her face. But she pulled away, evading his hand.

"Don't," she admonished.

"Well then look at me."

"Why?" she asked, still staring out the window.

"I want to make sure that you're okay."

"I told you that I was."

That wasn't exactly true, but Edward decided to move on to a far more pressing issue. "Why did you go there tonight?"

"I just wanted to."

"You shouldn't have," he chided.

 _Because what the fuck did she think she was doing going to a place like that?_

Bella huffed. "Well I know that _now_. I didn't know that _they_ were going to show up, did I?"

"It wasn't just _them_ ," Edward said, meaning the police. "It's that place. You don't belong there."

Edward's words must have struck a nerve, because Bella's head snapped around so that she was facing him.

And she was glaring, her eyes moist, but he couldn't tell if it was from pain or stress or anger or all of the above.

"Why?" she sneered. "Because I might've found someone who wasn't you? Or because you got stuck with me when you really wanted someone else?"

"I came for you. I knew you were there."

Her eyes dropped. "She said you would come. I didn't think that you would."

Edward felt a surge of annoyance at the reference to Tanya. "What the hell were you doing with her?"

 _Or rather, what the fuck was Tanya doing with Bella?_

"She came up to me. She said that she'd seen me with you. She wanted to know how you were doing."

Edward snorted. "And you fell for that?"

Bella glared at him again. "I didn't fall for anything."

"What would you have done if I hadn't shown up?"

"Does it matter?"

"Of course it does." Edward couldn't understand why Bella was being so damn obstinate.

He was beyond tired and still confused and maybe even a bit drunk.

And he just wished that Bella would say something to show that she really was okay.

"Why?" Bella snorted indelicately. "Wasn't this the point of our game? Isn't this what you wanted for me?"

"Not this." Edward couldn't believe that she was being so dense.

"Why not? Wasn't it debauched enough for you?" Her face took on a dangerous expression. "Or was _that_ the problem? Was it _too_ debauched? Did it make you sick to see me like that? Should I have been saving myself for some good ole boy? A sweet American boy who loves apple pie and wants to marry me? Someone like those doctor friends of yours from the gallery?"

"Don't talk like that," Edward reproached her, shaking his head.

He didn't want to think about her like that—didn't want to think about her at Breaking Dawn _or_ on someone else's arm, no matter how fucking perfect the man might be.

But it seemed like his words only made her angrier. "You don't own me Edward. I'll say what I want and I'll do what I want when I want to."

And as though to prove her point, Bella reached up and pulled on the cord, signaling for a stop.

She stood.

"What are you doing?" Edward asked stupidly.

"This is where I get off," she explained, heading for the door as the bus pulled up to the curb.

At a loss, Edward followed Bella up the aisle and then off the bus.

"What are you doing?" Bella demanded, clearly irritated.

"Walking you home."

Obviously unimpressed, she turned on her heel and set off down the block.

When Edward tried to wrap an arm around her, she tried to shake him off.

"Stop it," he said. "It's cold and we're keeping each other warm."

"Whatever," she conceded. But a moment later she complained. "I wish you would just be yourself."

Edward didn't understand. "What do you mean?"

"Stop being so nice."

"You want me to be nasty?" Edward was confused.

"I want you to be yourself."

"You think so little of me," he said sadly.

"Does it matter what I think of you?"

And Edward couldn't think of anything to say to that, so they walked the final block in silence.

As the reached Bella's door, she took out her keys. "Well, you've seen me politely to my door," she said. "The perfect gentleman. You can go now." She unlocked the door.

"Do you want me to come in?"

"You don't have to." Bella turned in the doorway to face him.

"I can, if you want me to."

"I have to get to work early tomorrow. And I'm sure you have to get home."

Edward waited, because she couldn't possibly be serious about this. They had to talk about what had happened. They had to fix—whatever was left to be fixed.

"Well, goodnight," he said, when it became clear that she was indeed serious about ending their night.

"Goodnight," she said, and closed the door in his face.

Edward stood there, staring at the closed door for a full five minutes, willing Bella to come back and open it.

Disappointed and shivering, Edward eventually pulled out his phone and called a cab.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

The next day, Edward's hangover wasn't as bad as he had expected.

But he still waited until noon before texting Bella: _How you doing?_

She texted back a single word: _Fine._

Trying to think of a way to get something more out of her, he fired off another text: _Guess we don't have_ _to keep meeting at that hipster coffeehouse anymore_.

When an hour went by without a reply, Edward anxiously sent another text: _That was a joke._

Still, Bella didn't reply.

Edward knew that Bella had the night off. So he drove to her apartment, and when he knocked, it was with a steady drum, because _Fuck this shit_.

"What the fuck's wrong with you?" Bella hissed when she opened the door.

"Let me in," he said.

"No." And she tried to slam the door closed, but Edward already had his foot in the way.

"I'm not leaving until you let me talk to you."

Glaring, Bella backed up, letting Edward inside the apartment. She crossed her arms, adopting a defensive stance, as Edward closed the door behind him.

"Is your roommate home?" Edward asked, glancing around.

"No."

"Good, I need to talk to you."

"So talk," Bella said.

"Can we sit down?"

"You can sit down if you want to," Bella replied, hitching a shoulder in the direction of the dingy-looking sofa.

But if Bella wasn't going to sit down, then Edward wasn't going to either. "I'm sorry," he said.

Bella narrowed her eyes at him. "For what?"

"I didn't want it to be like that."

"What? You didn't want _what_ to be like _what_? Precision of language, Edward."

Gritting his teeth, Edward struggled to contain his temper. "I didn't want the two of us to do that—"

Bella cringed.

"Let me finish," Edward said. "I didn't want the two of us to do that _with Tanya_. There. At that place. You deserved better than that."

Bella snorted. "I do?"

"Of course."

"It's just sex, Edward. It's not rainbows and fairy dust."

"But it was supposed to be better than that. I wanted better than that for you."

"Please—"

Edward ignored her dismissive tone. "Really. It doesn't have to be like that. I wish we could do it all over again."

"It's too late. It's done."

"It doesn't have to be," Edward said.

Realizing what he meant, Bella's eyes widened and she took another step back.

But Edward cut off her retreat, reaching for her elbow.

"We can do it all over again," he told her.

"But—"

Edward cut her off once more, this time pressing his lips to hers.

He waited for her to pull away, to give some sign that she didn't want this.

And he couldn't help rejoicing when she pulled him closer.

What happened between Edward and Bella then wasn't pretty. It wasn't nice. It was dirty and vulgar and, yeah, a little rough.

It was less depraved than that scene in Breaking Dawn. But that wasn't saying much.

They didn't make it to the bedroom, the two of them stumbling until Bella was lying on the sofa and Edward was on top of her.

It wasn't what Edward had in mind—it still wasn't the scene he'd been picturing—but he just wanted her so much. He promised himself that he would make up for this later, but right now he needed her.

But judging by her encouragement—the whispered pleas—Bella wanted him just as much.

Panting, Edward dropped his head to her shoulder, driven on by months of abstinence and something else, something that was innately Bella. He had never wanted another woman like this.

Unfortunately, as Edward gasped for air, his throat involuntarily contracted as it picked up the lingering traces of smoke on the cushions of the sofa.

Bella rarely used the sofa, disenchanted as she was by her roommate's habit of chain-smoking her way through a pack of cigarettes a day whilst reclining amidst said cushions.

Edward had, of course, noticed the smell as soon as he'd entered the apartment, a scent that always set him on edge, associating it as he did with his mother.

Focusing on Bella, he had ignored the smell.

But now with his face pressed into the cushions of that sofa, he couldn't help inhaling the noxious fumes.

He couldn't help remembering a person he would have done anything to forget.

Suddenly, Edward reared back.

"What's wrong?" Bella was confused.

But he didn't reply, not with words at least.

He shifted the two of them so that they weren't facing each other anymore.

Surprised, but filled with a sensation she hadn't experienced before, Bella cried out in pleasure.

Edward stepped up the pace, feeling desperate in a way he'd not felt before.

This wasn't lust. This wasn't even sexual.

This was something dark and bitter.

And even though his face wasn't buried in those cushions anymore, he could still smell the smoke.

His throat burning now, he hurried still more, trying to just end it so that he could get out of there, get away from that awful smell.

But it wasn't working. He wasn't getting any closer. If anything, he was going backwards. He had completely lost any desire to continue.

And once it was clear that he wasn't going to be able to regain that desire, he abruptly gave up.

He pulled away and righted his clothing, ignoring Bella's questions as he headed for the door.

He left without a word, his throat closed against the smell of that smoke and his lungs refusing to take in any air until he reached the sidewalk.

He got in his car and sped away. As fast as he could.

 **AN:** **Still not rape:**

But judging by her encouragement—the whispered pleas—Bella wanted him just as much.

 **And when Edward** **reared back** :

"What's wrong?" Bella was confused.

 **Thanks for reading.**


	23. Chapter 23

**A little "Girl Crush" from** _ **Little Big Town**_ **. This one's got a lot of swing for a country song.**

 **The uncensored version of the below chapter is on Fictionpad.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

 _Let me not be such a feverish passion to you, my love, as I seem to have been a few days ago if I've done anything in my foolish youth which I've owned to regretting more than leaving you alone last night, wishing to hide the desire inside me. -_ Sulpicia translated by A. S. Kline

Chapter 23

To say that Bella was confused would be an understatement.

Edward was just so insistent. He just seemed so sincere.

Like he genuinely cared.

Which was weird—because that wasn't supposed to happen. It was just sex. That was all.

But he was just so damned persistent.

So she went along with it when he kissed her.

She thought they were going to go to her bedroom, but instead they mauled each other on the sofa.

Not that she minded the mauling. In fact, she rather enjoyed it.

She couldn't help thinking that she would enjoy it even more if they could just take their time. It was all going so fast.

And then he just walked out.

He didn't even—

 _Did he?_

No. He didn't.

He didn't even finish.

At least, she didn't think he had.

She certainly hadn't.

Twice now. They'd technically had sex twice now and neither one of them had gotten off.

That wasn't normal, was it?

 _Nothing about this is normal,_ Bella chastised herself as she set about disinfecting the sofa. The latter reeked of cigarettes but it was her roommate's property. Having sex on common use furniture wasn't exactly cool.

Well, _trying_ to have sex.

Feeling grimy, Bella gave up on the sofa and headed for the shower. She hurried to wash herself, not letting her hands linger over her body, refusing to dwell on the fact that two bouts of sex had left her feeling more needy than fulfilled.

She _wanted_.

Bella didn't want to admit that she was disappointed. She wasn't supposed to care.

She was still a little shocked at the way she'd thrown herself at Edward when he took her home from the gallery.

And the way he turned her down—

It was all because of that fucking statue at the gallery.

What the fuck was wrong with her? It was just a sculpture. _Who gets that worked up over a piece of art?_ Let alone a copy.

But even as a copy, Bernini's _Daphne and Apollo_ was enough to take Bella's breath away.

The look on Apollo's face. The tracery of leaves around Daphne's arms as her flesh gave way to vines.

Bella had always loved that sculpture. She'd never seen the real thing, not in person. And even it was a copy, seeing it _did_ something to her.

Edward probably thought she was crazy. She knew that she was being weird.

She told him about that statue of Aphrodite at Cnidos. How there was a rumor that a man had made love to it.

Bella couldn't believe the words that came out of her mouth after that, how she confessed that she sometimes imagined what it would feel like run her tongue over rough stone.

It wasn't just Bernini's _Daphne and Apollo_. She'd find herself staring at pictures of sculptures of Zeus. Of the other gods and goddesses and various mortals. Losing time.

Her own strange form of Stendhal's Syndrome.

Edward's question had confused her. "You want to be snared? Unable to escape?"

She didn't see what that had to do with anything. The sculpture of Daphne and Apollo was just that—a sculpture. It was art.

It was beauty. As in capital-B, Beauty. Plato's The One. God.

But she thought about it. She tried to answer truthfully: "I think—I think sometimes that it would be better to feel something rather than nothing."

Her answer made him angry. She could feel the tension rolling off of him.

She didn't understand why it mattered. Who cared what she thought about anything?

But then his friends appeared. And she tried to be normal. She tried to fit in.

And it just made Edward even angrier.

So she didn't put up a fight when he said that he wanted to leave early.

When they pulled up to her apartment, Bella was prepared for a fight.

Hence her surprise at the words that came out of Edward's mouth: "Bella, I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry for Port Angeles."

And if she had been prepared for a fight before, she was in full-on battle frenzy after that.

Because who the fuck did he think he was?

 _A fucking hero?_ Claiming that he was the one who had sent the police to save her that night in Port Angeles.

And then denying that he had sex with her mother?

 _FUCK HIM_.

But then it was like something clicked inside of Bella. It all turned off—everything inside of her—all of that seething rage—it just turned off.

And it was like she was outside of herself, watching Edward fall apart.

She wanted to tell him that none of it mattered, even if that was a lie. She wanted to box up all of their troubles and push that box into the back of a closet. Leave it there forever.

Because none of it mattered.

And she didn't like how broken he looked.

And there was something between them, wasn't there?

And there was something she was supposed to do, wasn't there?

And yeah, it was fucked up. But maybe he'd never find out— _of course he'd find out_. Maybe she wouldn't pull out her phone and make that recording— _of course she would._

But she didn't even get a chance to decide. Because he turned her down.

She was so mortified. Mortified and angry—angry at herself for imagining that Edward could possibly ever want her that way.

Bella had been out of communication with her fairy godmother for some time, but when Edward turned her down, Bella didn't hesitate about dialing Tanya's number.

Bella wanted a definitive act to mark this chapter of her life closed. Because it was over. Edward didn't want her.

But Bella broke down in the middle of her voicemail.

She hung up. Garbled or not, the message she left for Tanya was clear enough: Edward had said 'no.' The game was over.

To Bella's surprise, Tanya was knocking on her door less than ten minutes later, before Bella had had a chance to down the cold medicine with which she planned to knock herself out.

"You're hideous," Tanya sneered, observing Bella's tear-streaked face and wrinkled pajamas.

Tanya made Bella wash her face and fix her make-up (there was a small squabble about just how much make-up to apply). And Bella resumed the outfit that she'd worn earlier that night, the dress that Alice had given her.

And as Bella did all of these things, she felt like she was moving through a fog. Nothing seemed real.

She let Tanya push her out of the door and into a cab. And before Bella knew it, they were at Breaking Dawn.

Tanya ordered drinks for both of them, but Bella wasn't interested.

"I can help you relax, darling," Tanya offered, holding up a little pill. "I have just the thing."

Bella declined again.

She was already feeling off.

So much had happened that night. She didn't feel right.

And then Tanya was kissing her.

Bella had never kissed a woman before. She still felt strangely removed—like she was watching herself do all of these things—but there was something about kissing Tanya that Bella couldn't help but find intriguing, on an intellectual level if nothing else.

Tanya was soft. By contrast, Edward had felt hard—all angles and planes. There was something comforting about Tanya's softness, which surprised Bella.

Then Bella remembered that Tanya had kissed Edward. That Tanya had had sex with Edward.

Tanya knew what Edward liked. Edward liked what Tanya did.

And Bella decided that she wanted to know these things for herself.

So she granted Tanya's tongue entrance when she felt it tapping against her lips, and she couldn't help moaning when Tanya's hand slipped to her breast.

When Tanya pulled back, Bella immediately felt the loss—it was Edward's face she saw thinking of—and she watched in confusion as the bartender returned Tanya's phone (when had Tanya given it to him?).

"What are you doing?" Bella asked.

"Inviting Edward to our party," Tanya replied with a smirk, as she typed out a text.

"Edward?"

"Don't worry, he'll be able to find us." Tanya grabbed Bella's hand and began leading her up the stairs.

Bella didn't like the sound of this. She didn't want to see Edward. Not now. He didn't want her.

And if Edward didn't want Bella, did that mean that he wanted Tanya? If he was coming here, did that mean that Bella was supposed to watch while Edward fucked Tanya?!

 _Fuck that._

Bella hesitated, taking in the decadent furnishings of the room Tanya had found.

"It's like a hotel," Tanya told her. "For select clientele. The room's ours for the rest of the night."

"What for?"

"Edward's coming," Tanya said, drawing Bella further into the room and closing the door.

Bella decided to play dumb. To _make_ Tanya tell her. "Why would he come?"

"To fuck you of course."

Tanya said it so casually. Like it was nothing. Like it was a given.

 _This is wrong_ , Bella thought.

But she couldn't muster the strength to walk out. Her limbs felt heavy, like she was moving through molasses.

 _Is this what it feels like to go crazy?_ she wondered.

Tanya ran a finger down Bella's cheek, dropping her voice in reassurance. "He'll be here. Trust me."

Bella shook her head slowly. Tanya was wrong. Tanya didn't understand.

"You seem afraid," Tanya said, her voice just above a whisper. "Like a frightened doe."

 _Afraid?_ Bella didn't think this was fear she was feeling.

It was confusion and sadness and exhaustion—pure, utter exhaustion.

Tanya kissed the corner of her mouth. "What are you so afraid of? I'll take care of you."

Bella wanted to be taken care of. She was just so damn tired. She deserved to have someone take care of her for once.

She let Tanya pull her purse out of her hands. She watched as Tanya tossed it on a chair, the only chair in the room, a gaudy, expensive looking thing.

She let Tanya push the cloak off of her shoulders. It fell to the ground.

Tanya had already shed her own cape-like coat.

Bella felt so tired. The sensation of soft skin on soft skin as Tanya ran her hands down Bella's arms was so soothing.

"You're so warm," Tanya whispered, running her fingers along the skin just above the décolletage of Bella's dress.

Bella closed her eyes. And it was Edward's face she saw again.

When Tanya pushed her down on the bed, Bella imagined it was Edward's weight on top of her own. Hard, not soft. And she pretended it was Edward's hands pulling up her dress.

She wondered what Edward would think, if he could see Bella and Tanya together like this.

And then Bella thought she _must_ be dreaming, because Edward _was_ there, standing in the doorway, watching them, just like Bella had imagined.

 _God_ , how she wanted him.

She knew it didn't make any sense. She knew it was wrong. But she wanted him. She'd wanted him for a long while.

And he'd come, just like Tanya had said.

So maybe he _had_ been lying when he said that he didn't want her.

But Bella had to quickly abandon that hope. Edward didn't want her.

What he wanted, was for Bella to go home. To leave Breaking Dawn.

She couldn't believe him. Wasn't this the whole point of their contest? Even if he didn't want her for himself, he supposedly wanted her fucked, one way or another. So what business was it of his if she found someone to do the job?

It confused her.

Confused her so much that she decided that she didn't give a fuck when Tanya started issuing orders. Because who was Edward to tell Bella what to do?

And part of Bella liked it. She liked not having to figure it all out—she was always having to figure everything out. Just for once, she wanted to be able to let someone else take control.

And though Bella clearly had no idea what Edward wanted, she knew that Tanya did. So she would let Tanya tell her what to do, to _make_ Edward want her.

It was working too. Bella could tell that Edward was enjoying it.

Even if he was only enjoying himself because Tanya was there, _Bella_ wasthe one he was fucking, not Tanya.

Contradictory though it was, even though Tanya was the one in charge, Bella could only see Edward. Could only feel Edward. It was like Tanya wasn't even there.

And the game was… _interesting_. On an intellectual level.

Bella found it interesting that letting someone else call the shots could be simultaneously so restrictive and yet freeing. A relief. Bella wanted it to keep going and going.

There was hardly any pain at all. It was more the intrusion.

But it felt good at the same time that it hurt. Or rather, the pain felt almost like pleasure.

Which probably said something really fucked up about Bella. And Bella knew it, too.

Which made the pain all the more pleasurable in Bella's mind. Because she _deserved_ it. And it was another kind of relief.

Bella was wondering where it would go next. Where it _could_ go—

When they heard the noise downstairs.

Breaking Dawn was being raided.

Bella had no idea why the police would be taking an interest in Breaking Dawn. Having sex wasn't illegal. This was America, goddamn it. The so-called land of the free.

And alongside that self-righteous indignation, Bella felt was a sick curiosity to find out what it would be like to be arrested. To be charged as a criminal.

So despite the panic, Bella almost wanted to stay behind. She wanted to see what was happening. Something inside of her jumped with excitement at the thought of cuffs being put around her wrists. Of being frisked. Of spending the night behind bars.

She knew that she hadn't done anything wrong. The authorities couldn't do anything to her.

But she also knew that she couldn't take the risk, not if she wanted to be a teacher.

So she followed Tanya through that hole in the wall—that ridiculous hole in the wall—pretending that this flight through a hidden passageway wasn't just another sign that she was losing her mind.

And it was a positive thrill—Bella's nerves were on fire. After feeling like she was just going through the motions all night long—until the bed, that is, until Edward, until it hurt so good—Bella was finally awake. And it felt like every molecule in her body was on high voltage. She felt like laughing. She had to press one dirt-smudged hand to her lips to stop herself from laughing out loud as she followed Tanya through that passageway. Visions of gangsters in suits and bowler hats were dancing through her head, jazz music playing in the background.

Bella was still riding that high when they reached the garage. She could hardly feel the cold as they scurried down to the street.

When she glanced back at the police lights, she wanted to laugh again. Laugh and laugh and laugh.

But her sense of mirth disappeared when Tanya hailed that cab.

Bella felt her throat close up. The idea of riding somewhere with the two of them made her feel sick to her stomach.

Bella didn't want to contemplate what came next. _What more could they possibly want from her?_ Bella had done her part—earned her money. It was over, wasn't it?

And part of her was afraid that Edward and Tanya would agree.

She couldn't bear the thought of having to sit in that cab with the two of them, watching them make out, ignoring her.

She knew that she was being childish, but she needed some space.

And she was fucking livid when Edward boarded that bus behind her.

But not even her anger was enough to keep the adrenaline from draining out of her body as she sat down. She was exhausted again, staring out the window. She felt shaky. And to her utter horror, she felt her eyes pricking with tears.

Why was she crying? She had gotten what she'd wanted. She'd escaped arrest. And she would have enough money to pay for her father's treatment now.

Part of her even took some pride in the realization that she'd succeeded in seducing Edward Cullen. She'd gotten one over on him.

 _But you enjoyed it_ , she thought.

Yes, she had enjoyed. She'd enjoyed all of it—the bickering _and_ the sex.

 _You don't want it to be over._

What the fuck was wrong with her?

 _It was just sex_ , she told herself. She was allowed to enjoy sex, even fucked up sex.

She was trying to figure it out—

 _If only Edward would leave me alone._

He was being so damn solicitous! He kept asking her questions, making sad faces at her.

Like he'd wounded her somehow and wanted to make sure that she was okay.

Bella wasn't a fucking victim. She'd chosen this.

 _How dare he?!_

She despised him for that—for pitying her.

For thinking that _he_ was the one who'd gotten something over on her.

As if he'd won something.

Bella almost told Edward the truth then. Almost told him about her deal with Tanya.

Bella wanted to see his face when he realized that _she_ was the winner, not him.

But she was so tired. She didn't have the energy.

She just wanted to sleep.

So she held her tongue. She let him escort her to her door. She let him pretend that everything was fine.

The next morning, Bella dragged herself out of bed, still exhausted.

The previous night's events seemed too fantastic—like a dream.

She tried not to think about them as she fumbled through her routine.

But she couldn't help thinking about what Edward had said—so many times—about her. About her long-standing aversion to sex.

According to Edward, _normal_ people had sex. According to Edward, Bella was just waiting for someone to come along so that she could have sex like everyone else. According to Edward, sex would somehow magically make her "normal."

Was she? Was she "normal" now?

She didn't _feel_ normal.

She felt confused and wrong.

But she didn't feel _wronged_. She didn't feel like something had been taken from her. The very notion that Edward had somehow gained power over her filled her with fury.

Bella was the one who had done the taking.

 _And he was wrong!_ Edward had said that sex would make her whole.

She felt undone. Like part of her was missing.

But it wasn't her virginity that she missed.

God help her, it was _Edward_ that she kept thinking about. It was _Edward_ that filled her thoughts.

And that was a no-go.

Bella texted Tanya: _When can we meet?_

It was tacky, but Bella had fulfilled her agreement with Tanya. It was Tanya's turn to uphold her end of the bargain.

Around noon, Bella received a text, but it wasn't from Tanya.

 _How you doing?_

Why was Edward texting her? Didn't he know what he was doing to her?

Oh, how she hated the fact that he cared—

 _He doesn't care_ , she warned herself. _He doesn't._

He just felt guilty.

Or he was just fucking with her.

She texted back a single word: _Fine._

And his reply confirmed the worst of her suspicions: _Guess we don't have_ _to keep meeting at that hipster coffeehouse anymore_.

He was definitely fucking with her.

She didn't reply.

An hour later, he sent another text: _That was a joke._

He could fuck off if he thought she gave a fuck.

 _But she gave a fuck alright_. She was thinking of him, in fact, of his hands on her body, of his lips on hers, of the way it felt when—

She was interrupted out of her daydream by the sound of someone knocking on her door. Pounding on it like a complete and total asshole.

What the fuck was wrong with him?

 _Maybe he cares_ , a small voice in Bella's head said.

Maybe so, but Bella was going to make him work for it. She was going to make him earn it.

He was pulling it off, too. He was doing a decent job of convincing her that he actually cared.

She knew that they ought to take it to her bedroom, but she'd never felt like this before—she'd never wanted someone like this before.

And it was like he was out of control. It was a turn-on to realize that she was doing that to him.

Except she wasn't, was she?

Because it just fizzled.

It just—

Stopped.

And then he walked out.

 _What the fuck had happened?_

No, seriously. What the fuck had just happened?

Bella was kneeling on the floor of her apartment, half-clothed, her face buried in cigarette-stained sofa cushions, alone and mortified.

Utterly mortified.

What the fuck was wrong with Edward?

 _Who does that?_ she asked herself, meaning, of course, the way that Edward had just walked out—but maybe also meaning the way that she'd let him just bend her over that sofa.

Would she ever hear from him again?

The fact that she cared about the answer was enraging.

Bella didn't need anyone. Especially not Edward Cullen.

What the fuck had she expected?

It wasn't enough that he had fucked her in that—that _place_. Breaking Dawn. _With Tanya._ He had to repeat the whole encounter. _In her apartment_.

It was disgusting.

He was disgusting.

And there was something clearly wrong with him. The way that their encounter had ended—that wasn't normal. He obviously had some sort of condition. Physical or mental.

He didn't have an STD. Tanya was certain of that.

 _Bitch better have been telling the truth._

So it was mental. Bella always knew that he was fucking crazy.

Unless Bella was the problem. Unless _she_ was the reason he couldn't—

He seemed fine with her the previous night. But maybe that was because Tanya was there.

And something inside of Bella cracked.

 _You stupid, stupid bitch_ , she cursed herself. What had she done?

What had she expected?

Even assuming that Edward actually wanted Bella, what kind of future could she possibly have imagined for the two of them? Did she really think that they were going to—

To what? Be a couple?

Did she really think that they could just go on having their little coffeehouse trysts and fucking on the side?

Leaving aside the issue that Bella had, in fact, set Edward up, there was the problem of their history. They had hated each other since they were teenagers. All of the revelations that had come out about Port Angeles and Bella's mother should have made things better—healed old wounds—but Bella didn't want those wounds healed.

She wanted Edward, yes, but she couldn't afford to forgive him, to let down her walls.

She was just so damn used to hating him.

And Edward wasn't a nice person. Nothing had changed that. He was cruel and vindictive.

The way that he'd walked out of her apartment after mauling her proved it.

So why, oh why, did she still want him?

 _You're fucked up_ , Bella told herself. _You feel guilty for using him, that's why you liked how rough he was_.

And part of Bella knew that there was another, darker reason that she had liked it: A sick, twisted little remnant from the years she'd spent watching the way men treated her mother.

It wasn't right. It didn't make sense. But part of her was curious. Part of her wondered why her mother would do it.

 _So Freud was right about one thing_ , she decided. _We want things we shouldn't._

Case in point: Bella couldn't deny that she still wanted Edward.

But Bella was used to wanting things she couldn't have. And if it was over, Bella wasn't going to belabor the point.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI – CI

Edward sat up all night, wracking his brain to try and figure out what the fuck had gone wrong.

Because he was losing his goddamned mind.

The way he had just fallen apart, like a fucking teenager, or an old man, just losing the pace in the middle of sex like that.

What the fuck was wrong with him?

It was that fucking smell. The scent of smoke lurking on the cushions of that sofa. He couldn't take it.

So maybe there really was something wrong with him. Like physically.

But that was bullshit. He was a fucking doctor. Edward knew that there was nothing wrong in that department.

It was his fucking head.

It was always his fucking head, wasn't it? He was a head-case, always had been.

And there was no helping that. None of those shrinks that Carlisle had sent him to did a damn bit of good.

So here he was, all of these years later, falling apart, because of a goddamned smell.

Fuck that. He wasn't going to lose Bella over that.

 _Lose her?_

Yeah, lose her.

Edward wanted her.

He had never wanted anyone—not like this—and he wasn't going to lose her because of a fucking dirty sofa.

So how could he fix it?

 _Tell her the fucking truth._

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI – CI

Fortunately, Bella had her hands full with work and school, which provided a nice distraction. She was still going to put in as many hours as possible, at least until Tanya handed over the money.

And Tanya had yet to reply to any of Bella's texts.

Bella was already in a bad mood about Tanya's silence when she saw the student waiting at her desk. Of course it _had_ to be James, that strange little creature.

Bella knew that her aversion to the young man didn't make sense. She had never actively disliked a student before— _What would be the point?—_ but something about him just set her on edge.

She donned what she hoped was a cheery expression. "What can I do for you?"

He then proceeded to lay out a calamity-filled narrative, complete with sleepless nights and dangerous visits to the student health clinic.

When he got to the part about his roommate playing _World of Warcraft_ , Bella cut him off.

"If you want to retake your quiz, that's fine with me." Appearances aside, she wasn't making actually an exception for James. She had no problem with students retaking quizzes. But she didn't advertise the fact.

"Really?"

Bella nodded, ignoring the flow of gratitude that then issued from James' lips.

But when Bella set the quiz in front of James, he protested.

"This isn't the same quiz that you gave us."

 _Was he serious?_ "Of course it's a different quiz. I'm not going to give you the same questions."

Scowling, James proceeded to take the quiz and waited nervously while Bella graded it.

He scored even lower on the retake.

He then proceeded to argue that the quiz (or _quizzes_ —it wasn't clear) had contained trick questions.

Bella wasn't convinced, but a latent desire to prove her mettle as a teaching assistant overpowered her desire to send the young man on his way. She wouldn't write him off just yet.

"Can you summarize the reading for me?" she asked.

"Christians stopped the pagans from sacrificing babies," James said.

Bella blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"

"The pagans were sacrificing babies and people were sick of it," James said.

Bella watched James very carefully. "The pagans were _actually_ sacrificing babies? Or the _Christians_ were just _saying_ that?"

James looked at her quizzically.

Just to be sure, Bella asked, "You do realize that Christians were also accusing _each other_ of sacrificing babies, right? Like that was a thing they did back then. The pagans accused the Christians. The Christians accused the pagans. And then the pagans accused other pagans and the Christians accused other Christians."

James' eyes widened.

 _Ah, fuck my life_ , Bella thought.

She spent the next thirty minutes painstakingly trying to explain the intricacies of propaganda to a young man who, believe it or not, was prone to complaining about #FakeNews.

She made James take out the reading and they reviewed it together.

"But who killed the babies?" James asked.

Suddenly overcome by the overwhelming desire to yell that there were no babies, that there never were any babies, Bella was cut off by the sight of Jacob coming out of the stairwell, a bouquet of flowers in his hands.

Jacob was the last guy Bella would have expected to see with a delivery of flowers, and her eyes widened with still greater surprise as he proceeded to stroll over to her desk with said bouquet.

"They're for you," Jacob said, plopping the vase down on a corner of her desk. "I just signed for them. The delivery guy was lost."

"Why would someone send you flowers?" James asked.

Ignoring him, Bella snatched up the card, her heart racing.

And when she saw the name—something inside of her flipped over.

"Sorry," she said, grabbing her phone and texting out a message.

Maybe she was an idiot. But so what?

"Have you got a boyfriend?" a voice asked.

Bella looked up from her phone, a stupid smile on her face. "What?"

"Are those flowers from your boyfriend?" James asked.

"Oh no," Bella shook her head. "I don't have a boyfriend."

"Then who sent you the flowers?"

"It was just a friend."

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Bella was a bundle of nerves when she knocked on Edward's door that night.

He had mentioned dinner when she texted a _thank you_ for the flowers, but she didn't know if he was serious about that.

To her surprise, Edward answered the door with a book in his hands, his eyes still on the page.

"' _His head was dashed from rock to rock,_ '" Edward read aloud, _"'his hair torn off by thorns, his handsome face despoiled by flinty stones; wound after wound destroyed forever that ill-fated comeliness.'_ "

Glancing up at Bella, Edward cocked an eyebrow. "Looks like I was right about him on this one."

Now, to an outside observer, this exchange might have appeared strange, aggressive even. But Bella was an ancient historian. She knew the play that Edward was reading from—Seneca's _Phaedra._ And she and Edward had spent many an hour debating the opinions of Seneca the Younger, Edward having perused Seneca's writings at Bella's behest.

 _Phaedra_ was about a young man who incurred the wrath of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, because he vowed to remain a virgin. As punishment, he was impaled, in the groin, and then dragged to death.

To Bella, it was obvious that Edward wanted things to go back to the way that they used to be between the two of them. He wanted to go back to the days when they would sit around arguing about two thousand year old plays.

It was a relief of sorts for Bella. At least he wanted to go on seeing her. But she couldn't deny feeling a small pang of disappointment.

That disappointment changed to confusion when she saw how Edward had set the table. It was romantic, to say the least, with candles and fancy red napkins stuck in glossy black napkin rings.

And as for the food, it was just take-out, but it was from a Thai place that Bella happened to love.

So even though Bella was confused, she let herself enjoy the simple pleasure of good food and good company. She was having a fine time.

Thus she was a bit surprised when, a propos of nothing, Edward suddenly asked if she remembered his scars, the ones on his back.

It wasn't like it was a big secret. Bella knew about the scars. She'd seen them.

And she wasn't stupid. Edward was fairly sure that she knew where they came from.

But still—

It wasn't going to be easy for him to lay it all on the table.

Edward wondered if she even realized how momentous this was for him. People had seen the scars of course. There was no way to hide them. And people had asked questions.

But Edward wasn't in the habit of providing answers. And he didn't entertain the company of people who insisted on pressing the issue.

"Don't be so vulgar," Tanya had once chastised a particularly persistent creature who persevered in posing her questions.

Tanya got it.

But Edward didn't give a fuck about Tanya. And he had never told her about the scars or where he got them. About _who_ he got them from.

As much as Bella and Edward used to fight as teenagers, she'd only referred to the scars on a single occasion, and then only after they were adults, right after they met up again, in _Newton's_. Edward had demanded an explanation for Bella's reentry into the Cullen's lives. "Is this some kind of punishment?" Edward wanted to know. "Do you think you can just come waltzing back into my life and get revenge?"

He thought that she was still carrying a grudge from back when they were teenagers, when they used to fight all of the time.

"What are you, twelve?" Bella had asked. "Believe it or not, my world does not revolve around you, Edward Masen. I'm not here to _punish_ you. I'm not your crack addict mother doling out beatings every time you wet the bed."

At the time, Bella's words didn't really shock him as much as they probably should have. They were cruel, yeah, but the pain was almost a relief, because it was confirmation of his suspicions as to Bella's motives.

They weren't friends.

But now?

"I know you've seen them before," Edward said, meaning the scars. "When we used to go swimming at First Beach."

Bella remembered. But she didn't understand why he would bring that up now.

He pulled up a sleeve and pointed to a circular indentation right above the elbow. "Do you know what made that?" he asked.

Bella shook her head.

"A cigarette." Edward pushed his sleeve back in place. "My mom." He shrugged—a shrug that Bella thought she recognized. A shrug that meant: _It doesn't matter. And to prove that it doesn't matter, if you ask me about it, I'll end the world._

But Edward seemed fine enough. He shook his head. "Anyhow, I don't like the smell of cigarettes now. It makes me remember things—" He paused. "That I don't want to remember."

Bella knew what that was like.

Edward grimaced. "That's why I hate your apartment. Every time I've gone there—"

He sighed. "So I know it's stupid and I know that it doesn't make any sense, but last night on the sofa, it was just too much." His nose wrinkled. "I mean, that sofa _reeks_ of cigarettes. Doesn't your roommate own a can of Febreze?"

Edward paused again. "I'm sorry—that was rude. I'm being a dick. And this explanation is the shittiest explanation in the world of shitty explanations, but it's the truth."

"You left last night because you didn't like the smell?"

Bella was finding this a little hard to believe.

A look of pain flashed over Edward's face. "It's not just the way I left, though that was bad enough. It was the way that—I mean, it's what happened on that sofa. It wasn't supposed to be like that. Not again."

Bella didn't want to talk about that. She didn't want to hear about what a disappointment she'd turned out to be.

It was beyond mortifying to contemplate the fact that she couldn't even keep Edward's interest long enough for him to finish.

So she tried to play it off. "Well at least the cops didn't show up again."

Edward blanched.

Ignoring his reaction—because it gave her hope that he might actually care, and that hope was a dangerous thing in her opinion—she said, "Too bad Breaking Dawn's probably closed. Now that the contest is over, you could be there as we speak. Making up for all of the weeks that you couldn't have sex thanks to me."

Bella knew that it was a fucked up thing to say, but she wanted to hear him deny it, to say that he didn't have any interest in finding another woman.

And if he didn't deny it, well then she'd know the truth, wouldn't she?

"I'm happy right where I am," Edward assured her.

But that sounded too much like the very thing that Bella wanted to hear, and she didn't think it could possibly be that easy. "Oh come on. You finally got to have sex again, and it was with someone who didn't even know what she was doing."

"According to Tanya, I didn't know what I was doing either," Edward scoffed.

"Well I suppose you proved me wrong. Virgins _aren't_ that interesting after all."

Edward was studying Bella warily. "Is that what you think?"

Bella knew that she was making an idiot out of herself, but she'd gone too far to back out now. "You made it clear enough. It's kind of funny if you think about it, though. Like a sketch comedy: The Bumbling Virgin and the Keystone Cops."

"Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Putting yourself down."

"I'm a joke to you," she pointed out.

"I don't think you're a joke."

"Yes you do. Or at least you think my sex life's a joke."

"That's not true."

"You tried to shame me with my inexperience all of the time."

"Only because it annoyed me."

"Because I was supposedly missing out on something?" Bella asked. "What am I missing out on? One lousy fuck that hardly qualifies as sex and a two minute wham-bam minus the 'Thank you ma'am."

Bella knew that she was being a bitch, but so what?

Was she actually supposed to be grateful that he wanted to see her again? That he wanted to carry on with their—their _whatever this was_?

Edward took a deep breath. "That was the other reason that I invited you here tonight."

At his words, Bella's stomach flipped over.

And seeing the deer-in-the-headlights expression passing over her face, Edward tried to backtrack. "Not that I expect anything from you, but I fucked up. Again. And I want a chance to fix it. Not that I deserve another chance after what happened at your apartment yesterday. I promise that I can do better though. If you're interested." His eyes slid down to the table. "If not, if you just want to be friends, I understand."

Bella didn't know what to say.

This wasn't what she'd expected.

Or was it?

No. Not like this.

What was happening? Who was the guy sitting across from her?

She didn't recognize him. She didn't recognize him at all.

Nice, _wounded_ Edward, with his scars.

Then she remembered how it felt when he had rejected her. "You turned me down. After the gallery." She shook her head. "And yeah, you showed up at Breaking Dawn, but only because Tanya invited you. I don't want you to feel like you're obligated."

Edward scoffed. "Believe me, I don't feel _obligated_. At least, not like that."

But that didn't help clear up matters for Bella. She didn't want to be with Edward like that.

She wanted him.

But she didn't want a pity fuck.

Edward continued. "It's just—I wanted your first time to be with someone you loved."

And then Bella was the one who was scoffing. "You don't believe in love," she told Edward.

"What makes you think that I don't believe in love?"

"Do you?"

"Not for me," he wouldn't lie, not to her, not about this. He'd already fucked up too much. "But for other people—"

"Other people who lie to themselves. Who imbue a concoction of hormones with a mystical significance that somehow transcends time and space."

"I'm surprised to hear you talk like this." _Surprised_ was an understatement. He had assumed—

Wrongly, apparently.

"I never said that I believed in marriage," Bella reminded him.

"You don't have to be married to fall in love." Edward didn't quite understand why he was so hell-bent on convincing Bella about this. As if he actually wanted her to move on.

"Well Mr. Right isn't exactly knocking on my door, so I guess I'll just have to take your word for that."

"You could date," Edward said, pretending that the notion of Bella dating some random asshole didn't piss him off a little. "That Jacob guy."

Edward tried to keep the scowl off of his face at the mention of Jacob's name. He knew damn well that Jacob would be all too happy to move in on Bella.

 _And he probably wouldn't have the same kind of problem you ran into yesterday,_ Edward thought ruefully _._

Edward still couldn't believe what had happened. What had _not_ happened.

He'd decided that it was a combination of stress and prolonged inactivity. That was all.

Now, he wanted to fix it.

And not just because he wanted to regain some of his lost pride. But because he _had_ fucked up, and he knew it.

Bella rolled her eyes. "Yeah. Think I'll pass."

Edward was relieved by her answer. But it wasn't enough. "Why?"

"He's not my type."

"I thought you didn't have a type."

"I lied."

Edward felt a smile coming on. "So what is it then?"

Thinking fast, Bella replied. "Short, bald and ugly."

Edward scowled. "Well, lots of 'short, bald and ugly' men out there. You could try a dating app."

Bella shook her head. She didn't like this conversation. Not at all. Like she was somehow "normalized" just because she'd had sex with him, and now she was ready for her 2.5 kids and a husband. _Bullshit_.

"Why would I do that?" she asked. "I don't want to find a guy. I'm happy just the way that I am."

"On your own?" Edward looked unconvinced.

"Do you know how busy I am? Do you know how unusual it is that I've had three nights off in a row? I don't have the energy to deal with the stress of a dating website or a series of awkward dates with weird strangers."

"They can't all be weird," Edward insisted.

"The definition is in the word. 'Strangers' are 'strange.'"

"So you're not going to have sex either?"

"Who would I have sex with?" Bella asked.

"Me."

Bella opened and closed her mouth a few times before she could figure out a coherent response. "We only had sex because you won the contest."

"Technically, the winner of the contest was only supposed to receive bragging rights. The sex was extra."

"Oh."

He was right.

Edward continued: "But if that's the way you're going to be, then we can have a new contest."

"A new one?"

"I bet that I can make up for the last two times—'a lousy fuck and a two minute wham-bam,' I think you called it, even though it was more than two minutes—I bet you that I can do a better job."

"And what do I get if you lose?"

Edward smiled. "Bragging rights."

"Why would I want bragging rights about something like that?"

"Just think about it, you can tell the world what a bad lay I am. Save women all over the world from making the same mistake. Publish it in the newspaper. Get shirts made up: 'I had sex with Edward Cullen and all I got was this t-shirt.' Think about how hard it would be for me to find women after that. I'd be forced to revert to abstinence again. Sheer hell."

Bella felt like the situation was becoming a shade preposterous.

And she found herself scrambling for reasons to turn him down, not because she had made up her mind about his proposition one way or another, but because she didn't know what to do, and she was so used to disagreeing with whatever he said, that it came naturally.

"I don't know," she said quickly. "I think that part of your challenge should be seducing me. I went through a lot of trouble to get you into bed. You should have to work for it."

"I'll work for it alright." He stood abruptly.

"What are you doing?"

"Putting on some music. Dance with me?"

She shook her head.

"Why not?" Edward asked.

"I don't like dancing."

"I think you're lying. I still remember that lap dance you gave me at Newton's."

Edward pulled Bella up from her chair.

"But that's okay, I can wait for another lap dance," he said. "Because I can think of something that I want from you more than a lap dance."

Bella pursed her lips.

Edward shook his head. "I don't want to push you. Right now, I'd settle for another kiss."

Bella squinted at him.

He explained. "A kiss to show me that we're friends again."

"Friends don't kiss."

"Don't they?" Edward looked truly shocked. "Are you sure about that?" He ducked his head and kissed her quickly.

He pulled back. "Because I think that friends kiss like that all of the time."

Bella started to shake her head slowly, but he ducked his head again, kissing her once more. "Like that."

He kissed her a third time. "And like that."

Then he kissed her a fourth and fifth time. "And like this."

He kissed her a final time, not pulling away this time.

Bella shivered as Edward's tongue traced her upper lip, begging entrance. And though something told her to stop things before they went any further, Bella couldn't help admitting that she didn't want to stop him. She wanted to keep going.

That they might have been using sex to ignore some deeper problems was neither here nor there. At the moment, _sex_ was their problem.

This time was different. They were in a bed again, but not some gaudy monstrosity. _Edward's_ bed. A _new_ bed, too, purchased as part of Edward's recovery. He had never had sex in it before.

And this time, nothing was rushed.

If anything, Bella hated how slowly Edward was going.

He stroked and kissed each patch of skin as he exposed it.

And this time, Bella didn't have to imagine Edward's face, his hands and tongue.

This time, no one interrupted them.

"' _How sweet it is,_ '" he said, repeating one of the Ovid quotes that he'd texted to her all of those weeks ago, _"_ ' _to hear her voice quaver as she tells me the joy she feels, and to hear her imploring me to slacken my speed so as to prolong her bliss.'"_

"Please," she implored him.

"Don't you want me to prolong your bliss?"

Bella's back arched in pleasure.

"' _The height of bliss is reached when, unable any longer to withstand the wave of pleasure, lover and mistress at one and the same moment are overcome,_ '" Edward quoted when he'd finally regained his breath.

And rolling off of Bella carefully, Edward drew the blanket up over the two of them, pulling her into his arms. He was by no means a "cuddler," but he was _trying._

"So was that better?" he asked, half-nervous in a way that he couldn't remember ever being.

"I'm getting the t-shirts made up tomorrow."

"What—" For a second, Edward actually thought she was serious.

Laughing, she peeked up at him. "You were okay."

"Just okay?"

Bella knew she was taking a risk, but she wanted to know how he really felt. "Might need to test it again. I have to be scientific about this, you know. Repeat the experiment. It's my duty to womankind everywhere."

Edward kissed her neck. "Definitely."

"But don't think that you'll have it easy. I expect variety."

"Oh you do?"

"Absolutely."

"You didn't like it slow? And gentle?"

Bella's breath picked up. "I liked it. But I also liked it yesterday. I know that you think that you fucked up, but it wasn't awful."

"You don't think that I was too rough?"

She swallowed. "I think that I might like rough."

"How rough?" Edward asked, his voice gravelly.

 **AN: The quote from Seneca the Younger's** _ **Phaedra**_ **was translated by E. F. Watling. The other two quotes are from Ovid's** _ **Art of Love**_ **translated by J. Lewis May.**

 **I despise recaps of scenes from other character's perspectives. My apologies if it was dull.**

 **Right now, I don't like the end of this chapter. I think it was too fast for them to move into lighthearted banter. They're clearly ignoring glaring problems, and I think that I should have added a few more sentences at the end to make that more obvious. But I don't have any more time to work on this today and I want to meet my posting deadline.**

 **P.S. Wiktionary says that "came" is an acceptable form for the simple past or past participle of "to cum." I've seen arguments over this issue in fanfic, so I actually did some research for once.**


	24. Chapter 24

**Warning: This chapter contains a reference to suicide.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

 _"Any citizen male who became a prostitute positioned himself in a socially subordinate relation to his fellow-citizens: he lost his equal footing with them and joined instead the ranks of women, foreigners and slaves—those very bodies, receptive by definition to the administrative or pleasure-seeking projects of the masculine and the powerful….What was hard for the Athenians to accept…was not that they might be governed by a man who loved boys, or who as a youth was loved by a man, but that they might come under the authority of a leader who once identified with the role of pleasure object for others."_ – Michel Foucault, quoted in James Davidson's _Courtesans and Fishcakes_

Chapter 24

Edward wasn't used to feeling like this.

He was—what was the word?

 _Chipper_.

He was fucking chipper. He was walking into work with a fucking grin on his face. He felt like whistling.

And he didn't whistle.

And it scared the fuck out of him.

Things were working out so well with Bella. Better than he'd dared hope.

He had thrown caution to the wind and just laid it all out there, telling her about the scars. About the cigarettes. That smell—

It was completely out of character for him to be so honest. Edward never talked about the past. About his mother.

Bella's response was so cautious. Like she thought he was running a con. As if he was in the habit of showing people his scars and explaining how he got them in order to garner their sympathy.

And now?

Were they friends?

Edward had never friend, not a real one, if by a "friend" one means a person that you can rely on.

Edward's so-called friends had lied about him having sex with Bella's mother.

So he wasn't exactly in the market for a bosom pal.

And Bella wasn't a person that he would rely on, either. She was constantly doing things that took him by surprise. Saying things that made no sense. The way she just went to Breaking Dawn—

But he _wanted_ her to be someone he could rely on. He _wanted_ her to be that person in his life, and he'd long since given up on the possibility of having someone like that.

She _got_ him though.

Like that night at Alice's housewarming. Bella understood what it was like to be surrounded by people who expected you to fit in, expected you to feel loved, and to nevertheless feel so utterly out of place, so utterly unloved and undeserving of any affection whatsoever—to feel _wrong._

Bella got it. And no one ever got it.

Edward didn't just want to have sex with her. He wanted to know her, to spend time with her.

It was an entirely new experience for him.

And he liked it. Which was, yet again, an entirely new experience.

He didn't quite know what to do with it, and he could sense the danger, right there, lurking right at the edge of that happiness, the knowledge that this was going to go south, because Edward wasn't that lucky. He didn't get to be happy. He didn't deserve it.

But fuck it—goddammit—for a few minutes, just a few goddamn minutes, he was going to be happy. He was going to enjoy this, whatever the fuck this was.

And the shit could hit the fan later.

It hit the fan at 11:17 am that morning, when Edward stupidly took his step-sister's call.

"The police came to my boutique this afternoon," Alice said.

Edward laughed. "Knew those black market Guccis were going to bite you in the ass." He was still riding that high. He felt like nothing could touch him. He'd been on fire all morning, with brilliant insights into one complicated case after another.

"They had a cloak with them. An _Alice_ original. They wanted to know who'd bought it."

"And?"

" _And_ it was the cloak that I gave Bella for your little gallery charity thingy."

Edward's stomach dropped. "What the fuck?" He took a breath, trying not to give into panic. He didn't want Alice to know what had happened at Breaking Dawn. "How do you know?"

"It had a special embellishment on the lapel. I added it just for Bella."

"What did you tell them Alice?" Edward demanded.

"Oh no," Alice refused. "First you tell me why the police were looking for Bella!"

"What did you tell them?!" Edward demanded again.

"Because I checked the news, Edward!" Alice exclaimed, ignoring her brother's question. "Turns out that there was a raid at some sex club the same night as that fundraiser. Tell me that isn't why the cops were looking for Bella!"

"I don't _know_ why they were looking for her! We left just as they were coming in."

"So you _were_ there?!" Alice screeched.

"Alice—"

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"It's not a sex club," Edward tried to explain.

"It was raided by the _police_!"

"I don't know why they were there."

"Oh my _fucking_ God! Why would you take Bella to a place like that?"

" _I_ didn't take her there."

"Bella went there on her own?!" Alice cried, her voice hitting an even higher octave.

"She's an adult, Alice. _I_ 'm an adult. It's just a bar."

"Bullshit!"

"Alice—"

"And Bella left without a coat?! A coat that was a _gift_ from me?!"

"You're kind of missing the point, don't you think? _Tell_ me what you told the police," Edward ordered.

"I told them that they could go through my receipts after they got a warrant."

"What?" Edward started trying to remember the names of any lawyers he had treated. He wasn't going to let Bella get mixed up anything like this.

"Relax. Even if the police get their hands on a warrant, they won't find Bella's name on any receipt. That cloak was a gift."

"Thank God."

"Thank _me_ is more like it! And you honestly expect me to believe that that night was the first time that you went to that club? I _know_ you Edward."

"I have no knowledge of any illegal activities being carried out there," Edward insisted. "I still don't know why it was raided."

"Well, take it from me, there was some seriously fucked up shit going on there. And I don't just mean _sex_. I'm not a complete fucking prude."

"What do you mean?"

"Go online. See for yourself."

"Alice—"

"I don't want to talk about it!"

If it was upsetting Alice this much, it had to be pretty bad. Edward decided to drop it. "I'm sorry, for yelling at you. Thank you for not saying anything to the police. Thank you, for Bella. And for me."

"The police could seriously fuck with your careers," Alice warned Edward. "If they thought that you knew something about what was going down at that place—"

"I don't know anything! _We_ don't!"

"You better be telling me the truth!"

"I am." And he was.

As soon as Alice hung up, Edward went online. He would have looked it up sooner, but he'd been distracted by everything between him and Bella.

It was easy enough to find the story. And what he found made him sick.

Edward already knew about the drugs, of course. He never partook himself, but he knew easy it was to score something at Breaking Dawn.

As the son of a drug addict, he might have been expected to take a pretty dim view of drug use. And he did—at least of the addicts.

He despised addiction.

He despised himself for that very reason, even if his particular addiction was unrelated to drugs.

But like every addict, he secretly admired the deviant who partook in said addiction. Self-destructive as it was, addiction was a demonstration of freedom in Edward's eyes. In a way, it was the ultimate demonstration of freedom, precisely because it _was_ self-destructive. And Edward was decidedly against any law that would deny a person's right to take his own life. So a person who decided to throw his life away on drugs—or sex—was exercising a basic human right.

Never mind the part where addiction robbed a person of choice, made a person a slave to a vicious, unyielding mistress who could never be satisfied.

There was a vindictive part of Edward too—a cruel streak that made him think that addicts got what they deserved. Addicts like his mother. (Like him.) All of them. If they happened to kill themselves because they were too stupid to know better—well then, that was their problem. Survival of the fittest and all that.

So Edward knew about the drug-dealing at Breaking Dawn.

He had no idea, however, that the dealers who were handing out joints and Molly were also supplying Rohypnol.

Stupidly, he assumed that there were standards.

He was wrong, because apparently, Breaking Dawn was _the_ place to go in Seattle to get your hands on date-rape drugs.

To make matters worse, the bouncers were dropping the ball when it came to turning under-aged girls away from the door.

Several girls as young as fifteen, and one, apparently, no more than fourteen, were known to have gotten through the door. And after imbibing a more than ample amount of alcohol laced with drugs, a few of the ladies had been escorted (or carried) to the hotel conveniently situated down the block.

The owner of Breaking Dawn was denying all culpability and cooperating fully with the authorities.

As for Edward, we he felt guilty as hell, and he was just a customer. How many times had he been sitting there when an under-aged girl was being drugged, right under his eyes? He was a doctor for God's sake. How could he miss something like that?

He counted his lucky stars that no one (as far as he knew) had ever slipped anything to Bella.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

It had been days since the incident at Breaking Dawn, and Bella's only communication from Tanya was a weirdly cryptic text saying that the woman was going out of town.

WTF was that supposed to mean?

Bella wanted her money. She wanted this thing with Tanya over and done with.

As far as Bella was concerned, she'd held up her end of the bargain. Things might not have gone exactly as they had planned. Bella was supposed to tape herself with Edward and give the tape to Tanya. Instead, they'd had a threesome.

 _Had they had a threesome? Did it count as a threesome?_

Regardless, Bella felt like she'd done her part. She expected Tanya to pay up.

And as for Edward—

Bella didn't quite know what to do about him. She and Tanya had never discussed what would happen afterwards, with Edward.

Well, that wasn't exactly true. "Just once, right?" Bella had asked. "I just have to have sex with him the one time, and then it's over?"

"You never have to see him again," Tanya had confirmed.

Bella had never considered the possibility that she might _want_ to go on seeing him.

She had certainly never contemplated the possibility that he might want to go on seeing her.

And even though Tanya was ignoring her, she knew that the woman was out there lurking somewhere.

 _What makes you think that he's not seeing her too?_ Bella asked herself.

Was he?Was Edward seeing both of them at the same time?

It put a sick feeling in the pit of Bella's stomach to imagine Edward with Tanya. But Bella knew that Tanya had only suggested the deal with Bella in order to weasel her way back into Edward's life. According to Tanya, Edward would be so amused to learn that it was all a game—that Bella was Tanya's gift to him—that he would take Tanya back in a heartbeat.

It was sick, but they were all consenting adults. And as much as Bella hated the idea of Edward being turned on by something like that—a _gift_ like that—she was reluctant to pass judgment.

 _Consenting adults have a right to privacy_ , she told herself.

But it wasn't that easy.

 _This involves you!_ Bella couldn't help thinking.

This wasn't just between Edward and Tanya. It involved Bella.

They had used her. And she had let them do it.

Or rather, Bella and Tanya had used Edward. They had played him.

But Bella didn't like to think of it that way. She didn't like to think of Edward being the victim.

Which was why she didn't like to think of the scars on Edward's arms and back—of what they meant. Of what had been done to him. Because she remembered how once upon a time, she'd used those scars against him, making sure that they were on full display when a bunch of girls showed up at the First Beach.

Bella didn't like to think about high school. About all of the other times that she'd intentionally hurt Edward.

Because he had deserved it. Every time.

And if not, if she had crossed the line, then what did that make her?

 _No_. Edward and Tanya were the ones doing the using. If anyone was the victim, it was Bella.

But she wasn't a victim. Bella made her own decisions. _Rational_ decisions. Decisions made with a clear goal in mind.

So where was her fucking money?

She almost told Edward the truth the first night they had sex. In point of fact, it was the _third_ time they'd had sex, but Bella wasn't counting the first two aborted attempts.

Edward was kissing her throat, and for some reason, Tanya's face suddenly flashed before her eyes. She wondered if Edward kissed Tanya like that. And she was shocked by the explosion of jealousy she felt at the thought.

This was just sex. Who cared if he was having sex with Tanya, too? So long as he was safe.

"You didn't use a condom," Bella said.

Edward paused, and shifted so that he could see her face. "Do you want me to?"

"I want to be safe."

"I haven't had sex with anyone else for months. And I'm clean."

"I'm the only one you're having sex with?" Bella couldn't keep the note of accusation out of her voice.

He blinked. "Yeah. Of course."

She studied his face, looking for a hint that he was lying. But he looked like he was being honest.

And why would he lie? It wasn't as if he needed to hide his tastes. After Breaking Dawn, he couldn't possibly think that Bella needed to be deceived.

 _They're using you_ , Bella's inner voice warned.

But why would they? What else could they possibly want from her?

 _Ask him_ , Bella's inner voice told her. _Tell him the truth about the deal with Tanya. Test him._

She opened her mouth.

This was supposed to be Tanya's surprise though, not Bella's. Tanya had arranged everything. If Bella told Edward the truth before Tanya, then would Bella get her money?

And what would Edward do when he learned everything? If Tanya was right, he'd go running back into her arms.

 _If he doesn't already know_.

After everything she had learned about Tanya and Edward, Bella wouldn't have been in the least bit surprised to learn that Edward had found out about the deal, and that he and Tanya had agreed to continue seeking out Bella's attentions.

Bella didn't know what they could possibly want from her. But it would be sick and twisted. Of that she was certain.

"Have you heard from Tanya?" Bella asked.

A shadow flashed over his face. "Why would you ask about her?"

Bella scoffed. "Yeah, I can't imagine why."

He shifted, pulling away and turning so that he was sitting up. "I haven't heard from her and I don't want to."

Bella pushed herself up so that she was sitting too, pulling the sheet up so that she was covered. "Why not?" She tried to keep her voice controlled, but she could hear the steely edge. "Aren't you two friends?"

Edward snorted. "No. We're not friends."

"That's not what she says."

"We _fucked_. That's it."

"She wants you back," Bella said.

"She can go to hell."

Bella shook her head. "You went to Breaking Dawn—"

"For _you_ ," Edward's tone was exasperated. "How many times do I have to tell you that?"

"I don't want to have sex with you if you're having sex with other women," Bella snapped, and then gasped, because she was shocked that she'd actually said it out loud.

But if Edward was surprised at her request, it was because he was shocked that she would think he was having sex with other women, not because she seemed to lay a claim. "I'm not having sex with other women."

"But you _do_. I _know_ you do."

"I _did_. Past tense. I don't do that anymore. I'm not that guy anymore."

"Because of me?" The disbelief in Bella's voice was obvious.

"No. Because of _me_. I've changed. And if you don't believe me, that's your prerogative. But I'm not lying to you."

"You _told_ me, though. You're the 'king of corruption.'" She used air quotes. "Isn't that what you told me?"

"I was trying to win a goddamn bet!" Edward exclaimed. "And I was telling the truth."

Bella started getting out of the bed. "So you _are_ sleeping with other women."

Edward stopped her. "No. I was telling the truth about me. About the old me. That was who I used to be."

Bella studied his face again. She wanted him to be telling the truth. But she didn't trust that desire—because Bella didn't believe she deserved to have what she wanted. "I'm supposed to believe you've changed—"

"I have."

"But why would you? If there's nothing wrong with corruption?"

Edward shrugged. "Maybe I'm getting old. Not up to the challenge."

"And I'm an easy lay."

Edward scowled, grabbing Bella's hands and pulling her closer. "I want you. I think we fit together. Isn't that enough? Don't we get along? Isn't that enough? I want to be here. I don't want to be with anyone else. Don't ask me why. I don't know why. But it's what I want. Isn't that enough? Because it's enough for me. I get along with you, and I don't get along with anyone. Everyone hates me. But I want to be with you, right now, right here. That's enough for me. Isn't that enough for you?"

Bella didn't know what to say.

Or rather, she knew what she _wanted_ to say.

' _Yes_. _Yes, it's enough for me.'_

It was all that she wanted.

But it was temporary. Tanya was going to come back into the picture. Bella didn't know why the woman had dropped off the radar, but she was going to come back. Bella wasn't stupid.

And then what?

 _Edward will go back to her_.

Edward might have been flirting with monogamy, for the moment, but the instant Tanya showed up again, he would be gone. That was who he was. He had told Bella as much time and again. He sought out perversion. He enjoyed it.

 _But he's with me now_ , Bella reminded herself.

And Bella wanted him goddammit.

"Yeah, it's enough," she said.

She would keep her mouth shut about the deal with Tanya for the time being.

It was selfish and mean, but she had her reasons. She wanted her money and she wasn't sure that Tanya would pay up if she was the one who told Edward the truth.

And, God help her, Bella wanted to enjoy Edward while she could. She had more than ample proof to believe that the minute Edward knew the truth, he would be back in Tanya's arms.

Finally, paranoid though it might have sounded, Bella wasn't entirely convinced that the two of them weren't playing her. For all she knew, Edward had a camera set-up in his bedroom and had recorded her as they had sex. They were in his apartment, after all. And Tanya had already suggested that his appetites lay in that direction.

 _If you really believe that, then you should just walk out,_ Bella thought. _Right now._

 _But you want him._

She shook her head.

It wasn't healthy. It wasn't right. But she was going to stay right where she was. And she was going to keep her mouth shut. For now.

Bella had to protect herself first and foremost. No one else would. No one had stood by her when Forks turned on her. No one ever stepped in when she was living with her mother.

Bella _had_ to be selfish. She _deserved_ to be selfish.

Even if it meant that she was a bitch.

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"Did you know?" Bella asked. "About the girls? About the drugs?"

If Edward knew, then it was over, she decided. She would go to the cops and turn him in. Because there were some lines that couldn't be crossed.

"Of course not," he said, shaking his head.

It was an odd conversation to be having in such a venue—the good old meeting room of their favorite hipster coffeehouse—but Edward wanted to be the one to tell Bella about the reason behind the raid. He didn't want her finding out on her own.

Bella was upset to hear the truth, naturally, but there was something about Edward's demeanor as he shared the news that was particularly troubling.

He seemed—

 _Guilty_.

"Are you telling the truth?" she asked.

His eyes snapped to hers. "Do you really think I—"

"Then why are you acting so guilty?"

"I _am_ guilty—" Edward rushed on before she could reply: "I _didn't_ know. I'm not saying that I knew. I _should_ have known, though. I ought to have realized how young those girls were."

Bella's eyes widened. "Did you ever—"

"Absolutely not." Edward was adamant. On this point, at least, he knew that he was in the clear. "The women I had—" He stopped and started over. "They were all _women._ I knew all of them well enough to know that."

"Oh." Bella didn't know what to say. Part of her wondered how he could possibly know that for sure. She thought that he just picked up random women. But maybe she was wrong.

But Edward didn't look like he was done with his confessions.

"Is that it?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You look like you have something else you want to tell me."

He stared at Bella for a moment. "It's just, I never should have let you go to a place like that."

Bella blinked. " _Let_ me?"

"Don't start. You know what I mean."

"No, I don't. So why don't you tell me?"

Edward scowled down at his coffee. He didn't understand why she was starting a fight over this. "I shouldn't have let you go anywhere near a place like that."

"What are you talking about? I took myself."

"But you didn't belong there."

Bella snorted. "I'd say those under-aged girls didn't belong there."

"A place like that _attracts_ criminals."

"So they should all be closed down?"

Edward shrugged.

"And the people who aren't criminals?" Bella asked. "Where are they supposed to go?"

"Does it matter?" Edward had decided that he didn't care anymore. "They're deviants."

Bella was taken aback. "You don't honestly think that. I mean, I know you get off on thinking you're so outré, but you don't think that what you were doing at that place was really _deviant_ , as in criminal."

"Maybe it is, if criminals were just operating alongside of us without anyone noticing."

"The criminals were there because it was underground. And it was only underground because people think sex is deviant. But it isn't."

Edward looked unimpressed. "Look at you, the good little virgin arguing for deviance."

Bella felt the smart of his comment. "You never understood me. _Never_. You act like I'm the one who's so judgmental, but it's you. You're the one who goes around judging people. And labelling a person a deviant just because he doesn't have sex—and don't lie, you _know_ that's what you're doing—treating someone who's a virgin or asexual or just practicing abstinence like he's a deviant is no different than labelling a person a deviant just because he likes sex, whether it's heterosexual sex or homosexual sex or rough, but consensual, sex. It's all fucking labels. I want it all gone. No labels. I want a world where everyone is fine just the way they are. No judgment, because a person's sexual proclivities are no different than the color of his hair."

Edward was glaring at Bella, but she wasn't the one he was angry at. "There's just one problem. I was _there_. I probably saw some girl getting fucked up and I didn't even notice. I'm a goddamned doctor, and I didn't do a thing."

"If you _had_ noticed, would you have done something?"

"Of course. That doesn't mean that I don't blame myself."

"So what are you going to do about it?" Bella asked.

Her question took him by surprise. He hadn't really thought about it like that. "Start by staying away from places like that."

"Is that really enough? According to you, deviance is the real problem, isn't it? So what does that mean? Vanilla sex for the rest of your life? Missionary position? Find a wife who'll give you 2.5 kids, but will only fuck you when you're trying for another runt?"

Edward grimaced at the picture that Bella had painted. That wasn't for him, and he knew it.

But what did that mean?

Edward enjoyed sex. That hadn't changed, even if he knew that he had to change the way he went about doing it.

He was done with the marathon sex, for instance, one woman after another. Bella was enough for him.

And Edward didn't want to argue with Bella anymore. Not about this.

"I like your dress," he said, abruptly changing the subject.

She glanced down at herself, confused by the sudden switch in topic, but flattered by the unexpected compliment. "Do you really like it?"

"Yeah, is it one of Alice's?"

"I got it at a thrift shop," Bella admitted.

"Really? Well, don't tell Alice. You'll break her heart."

"I still haven't told her," Bella said, feeling guilty. "I left the cloak she gave me—you know, _that_ night. I don't know how to tell her that I lost it."

"She knows," Edward replied. "Don't worry, she isn't mad."

Bella got an ominous feeling. "What do you mean _she knows_?"

"The uh—" Edward paused. "They found the cloak and they traced it to her." Edward held up a hand when he saw a look of panic cross Bella's face. "Relax, she didn't give them your name and they won't be able to connect it to you."

"How do you know?"

"Alice took care of it."

Bella tried to process the fact that the police were looking for her, and that they'd somehow traced her all of the way to Alice. But then another thought occurred to her.

"Alice knows we were there? Does she know what happened?"

Edward chose his words carefully. "She knows that we were there and that we had to leave in a hurry."

"But does she know what kind of place it was?"

Edward sighed. "She knows."

Bella started shredding a napkin in her lap, obviously distraught.

Edward cocked an eyebrow. "I thought you were all for the liberalization of deviance."

"Does Alice know—" she broke off.

"What?"

"Does Alice know about _us_?"

Edward understood what Bella was upset about then. He didn't see the problem, though. "Alice isn't stupid. She knows something's going on."

"But we're just friends. I told her that we're just friends. That's what we are, aren't we?"

He nodded, unsure how he felt about Bella's reaction to the realization that their relationship wasn't exactly a secret.

"It's just, she wouldn't understand," Bella said, trying to explain. "It would be better if we don't tell her about—"

"That we're fuck buddies?"

Bella winced. "Don't be so vulgar."

Edward smirked. "You don't like the phrase 'fuck buddies?'"

Bella's nose wrinkled. "It's so crude. The word 'buddies'—it's so _wholesome_. So _apple pie_. Put together with the word 'fuck' like that, it's unsavory."

"What are we then?"

"Acquaintances. People who happen to know each other. And if, on occasion, you happen to fuck me up against a wall, I won't complain."

"I'm glad to hear that," Edward said.

 **AN: Thanks for reading.**


	25. Chapter 25

**This chapter is heavily censored for sexual content. The uncensored chapter (~4000 words longer) is on Fictionpad.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

" _Let me see thee, but a glimpse—and straightaway utterance of word fails me; no voice comes; my tongue is palsied; thrilling fire through all my flesh has run; mine eyes cannot see, my ears make dinning noises that stun; the sweat streams down—my whole frame seized with shivering—and wan paleness over me spreads, greener than the grass; I seem with faintness almost as dead_." Sappho, translator unknown

Chapter 25

Bella could tell that Edward was shutting down on her. And she didn't like it.

He'd led her to believe that they would continue to enjoy the physical side of their relationship. But now he seemed to be having second thoughts.

He wasn't questioning _her_ , per se, or the fact that she was in his life. But he seemed to be uncertain as to just how they ought to go about things now. Edward was tentative. He was all too obviously solicitous of her needs, sensitive to the fact that she might not want what he wanted.

But she wanted. She definitely wanted.

And while she _had_ enjoyed his gentler side, Bella also wanted the Edward who'd taken her on that sofa in her apartment.

Not the way it had ended, of course, but the spontaneity of it. As if Edward couldn't control himself.

During the course of their little contest, Edward had suggested that Bella wouldn't be able to control her cravings once she finally gave in. And maybe he was right, because she wanted him again.

She felt so wanton. That in and of itself was a turn on.

And it was in a haze of lust that she phoned him one evening after work and school.

"What are you doing?" Bella asked, suddenly feeling unsure. This was much easier in her head than reality.

"Getting ready for a shift," Edward answered.

"Oh, if you're busy—" She felt a pang of disappointment.

"I've got a few minutes. Why?"

"I just wanted to talk to you," Bella said, wondering if she really wanted to go through with this.

"What's up?"

"Um, I was thinking about you." She shook her head, annoyed at her own nervousness. Sighing, she threw out the next three words. "And your gift."

There was a brief pause. "My gift?" Edward asked.

"You were right," she breathed, her voice wavering a bit with nerves and tension. "There's only one speed."

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"What's wrong?" Edward asked, noticing Bella's sigh.

"I don't know which fork's for what," she confessed, dropping her voice so as not to be overheard by the other diners.

Bella felt stupidly nervous in her thrift shop chic. She didn't understand why Edward would take her to a restaurant this "fancy."

"Which one should I use?" Bella asked, eying the hors d'oevres.

"How would I know?" Edward snorted, before shoveling in a spoonful of bisque.

Bella narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously.

"What?" he smiled disarmingly, wiping his mouth.

"Are you lying to make me feel better?"

"How would I know which fork to use?"

"Esme. Carlisle."

Edward shrugged. "Esme tried. But Dad barely had two cents to rub together when he was growing up. He still calls shrimp forks the 'little prongs for prawns.'"

Bella smiled at the picture he'd painted.

But then, a propos of nothing, Edward said. "I wish you'd move. That neighborhood can't be safe."

Bella hitched a shoulder, wondering where this was coming from. "It's cheap. And it's not like I've been mugged yet."

"Emphasis on the 'yet.' There's a free apartment in my building."

Bella gaped at him. "I couldn't possibly afford that."

"I could float you a loan."

She blinked. "Are you crazy?"

"I know you're a fine, upstanding citizen. You have a deviant streak, maybe, but I'm sure you'd pay me back."

Bella tried to stem the sense of panic rising in her chest. "I don't like the idea of owing anyone money," she told him carefully.

"It wouldn't be like that," Edward insisted, seemingly oblivious to her distress.

"I just can't," she said, her voice rising.

Glancing up at her, Edward realized that she was, in fact, distressed. "It's just money. It doesn't matter."

"It does to me," Bella replied, sticking her chin up. But then, the way that Edward was looking at her made her realize that she was blowing his offer out of a proportion. She shook her head. "It's just." She stopped and started over again. "You don't know what it was like with my mother sometimes." Bella huffed. "All the time, actually. Always owing money and trying to wheedle people into giving her more time to pay the bills."

Edward mulled her words over. "I get that," he said after a minute. "My mom was the same way. I have no idea how we managed to keep the apartment. The landlord was always complaining that the rent was due." He shook his head." Sorry, I didn't mean to freak you out."

"It's okay," Bella said. She didn't want to talk about it. She knew damn well was acting like a basket-case.

"Alice asked me about you," Edward said.

Bella took a bite of her quiche.

"She said you've been ignoring her calls," Edward continued.

"I haven't been ignoring them," Bella argued. "I just haven't been answering them."

"She thinks that you're mad at her."

"I'm not mad at her."

"So you just don't want to talk about you and me," Edward observed in a knowing tone. He didn't sound angry. _Just stating the obvious_.

"I just don't know what to say," Bella complained. "About everything."

"Tell her it's none of her damn business."

"But that—" Bella paused. "Alice won't settle for that."

"Make her settle. It's not like it's her decision, anyway."

Bella wasn't sure that it would be that easy.

"Cheer up, it's just Alice."

Bella shook her head.

"Look, I was saving this for later, but I think that you need a pick-me up." Edward pulled a package out from under his seat and handed it to Bella.

Which just prompted her sense of panic to rise still further. She didn't like the idea of Edward giving her presents.

"What is this?" Bella asked. She hadn't noticed him carrying anything when they had come in from the car.

"Just a little something."

"Caligula," Bella said, without really thinking about it.

"What did you say?" Edward asked.

"Caligula." Bella put her shoulders back.

"Did you—did you just _safe word_ my _present_?"

"Yes, I did." Bella met Edward's gaze. She had used the "safe word" from their little game at _Breaking Dawn_. And if it was tacky to bring that incident up now, in the middle of a nice restaurant, well that Edward's problem.

But Edward didn't seem to be put out about being reminded of that night so much as he was annoyed that Bella was refusing his present. "You can't do that," Edward argued.

"Of course I can."

"We're in the middle of a restaurant."

"So?"

"So you can't safe word a present. And not this present anyhow."

"So what?"

"Just open it," Edward said. "Please?"

Huffing, Bella pulled the package towards her and tore off the wrapper. Her eyes widened when she realized it was a book.

She _liked_ books.

And her eyes grew impossibly wider as she flipped the book open and ran her eyes over a passage.

Bella had never before heard of the fantastic and sensational catalogue of titles published in the Merryland series of travelogues. But she was quick to realize that, like others in the series, the book before her—Thomas Stretzer's _A New Description of Merryland—_ was devoted to the description of a somewhat bizarre journey through a landscape oddly reminiscent of the topography associated with a woman's body.

But it wasn't the subject matter that had Bella's eyes bulging so much as the obvious finery of the print. "It's too expensive," she whispered heatedly across the table.

"You don't even know how much it cost."

"I'm sure that it's too expensive. I don't like to get expensive presents."

"Would you take a cheaper present then?"

Bella pursed her lips.

"Thought so. Besides, I never gave you a birthday present," he reminded her. "Consider it this."

"You gave me a vibrator."

"That was really a present for me. And thank you, by the way. I enjoyed it greatly."

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As Bella led the way into Edward's apartment, she laughed, glancing back at him over her shoulder.

"What?" he asked, dropping the leftovers on a small table, then turning to lock the door.

"Oh nothing," she said, pulling off her coat and turning to watch him. "I was just thinking—"

"That I'm right about everything?"

"That we haven't really played any games since—" Bella stopped, not wanting to refer to _Breaking Dawn_ by name.

"Do you want to?"

She did. But would he want to? "Well, I was just thinking that—you can't catch me!"

Bella tentatively took a step back, wondering what Edward would do.

The speculative glance he cast her way sent a wave of warmth through her frame. She reached for the light switch—

And darted away, leaving the apartment in dark as she sprinted through the living room.

"You don't exactly have far to go in here," Edward pointed out as he entered the living room cautiously, running his eyes on the shadow.

A couch cushion sailed across the room and hit him in the face.

"Turning my own home against me?" he growled playfully. "Who do you think you are?"

"I just needed a place to stay," a voice mocked from the direction of the kitchen. "And your door was open."

Dropping his coat, Edward sprinted towards the kitchen and—

Crashed into the counter.

He cursed at himself. This was _his_ apartment, after all. He had the advantage.

"I don't know who you are," Edward called. "But if you don't come out, I'm going to have to call the police."

"Don't do that," Bella exclaimed, clearly having back fled to the living room.

Edward toed off his shoes and crept in the direction of Bella's voice, reaching out a hand to feel his way. Rounding the couch, he fingers brushed against flesh and Bella giggled, darting away again.

"But you've broken into my home," Edward said, creeping down the hallway after Bella. "Who knows what you've been doing in here."

Coming to the entrance of his bedroom, Edward paused. He didn't think that Bella would have hidden in the bathroom. And going under the bed or into a closet was just too cliché.

Quickly, Edward pulled the door away from the wall and seized Bella. Crying out, she struggled in his arms.

"Got you!" Edward celebrated.

"No, let me go! Let me go!"

"But you've been in my home all of this time. Going through my things." Edward pressed Bella against the wall, pushing his body into hers.

"D'you wanna pick a new safe word?" he asked, uncertain about how he felt about the fact that she was still using _Caligula._

"No," she breathed. "Same word." It was _their_ word, after all. Special to them. It had nothing to do with Tanya.

"So what have you been doing alone in my apartment?" Edward asked, returning to the game.

"I promise that I didn't touch anything. I promise!"

"What were you doing here, then?"

"I was so cold and tired. I just needed a place to sleep."

"You slept in my bed?!"

Bella tried to pull away from him again. "I didn't mean to! I tried sleeping on your couch, but it was just too lumpy."

"So you thought that gave you a right to sleep in my bed?"

"I tried the floor, but it was just too hard."

"Well, if you liked the bed so much, why don't you lay down now?" And Edward pulled Bella away from the wall and pushed her in the direction of said bed.

"I'm sorry sir," Bella said as she fell on the mattress.

"We'll see about that." Edward pinned her down.

"I could make it up to you."

"You'll make it up to me alright." Edward bit down on her neck.

"I could cook and clean for you."

"No, I think that I'd prefer for you to stay right here in my bed. Since you like it so much."

"Oh no sir! I couldn't do that." Bella bucked, trying to force Edward off of her.

"But you owe me, don't you?"

"Not like this sir." Bella tried to wrench her hands out of Edward's grip, and getting one free, she struck in him the face, and froze. She hadn't meant to do that.

"Don't you _fucking_ apologize!" Edward growled, grabbing her hand and forcing it back down.

"But—" Bella tried to argue.

Edward ignored the obvious worry in her voice, and went back to their role-playing. "You've come into my home. You've been sleeping in my bed. You _attack_ me. I expect you to make up for it."

Bella struggled weakly, torn between wanting to go along with the game and just wanting to get on with the main event, so to speak.

"Rougher," Bella said.

"No," he said, refusing.

"But—" Bella needed it. She couldn't articulate why she did, but she did.

"Please!" Bella pleaded, feeling like she was going to cry if she didn't get something more.

He gave her what she wanted at last and it hurt, and at the same time, made her feel so much better. She felt centered. Calm.

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Bella considered herself a feminist. The notion that she might have wanted to be ravished had always struck her as a little offensive. She'd put up with it whenever Edward or Tanya had suggested it, because it fit in with the plan to seduce Edward.

But now that Bella was actually having sex with Edward—

It shocked her how much she enjoyed rough sex. How much she enjoyed role playing.

She and Edward were spending several nights together, always at his apartment. They would have sex, and usually more than once. Edward was often gentle, but Bella couldn't help admitting that she enjoyed it when he was more demanding.

The physical exercise left Bella achy and sore, but the twinges after-the-fact just made her want it more. Those twinges were certainty preferable to the anxiety—

It had only happened a few times, and only when Edward was especially tentative, especially gentle.

For some reason, afterwards, Bella would be left feeling uneasy.

She knew that it didn't make any sense, but long after Edward had fallen asleep, she'd lay awake, tears pricking at the corner of her eyes.

She never felt that way when he was rough.

And she much preferred role-playing to just being plain old Bella.

She had especially enjoyed the way Edward chased her around his apartment and then held her down.

But Bella had to admit that the occasion had reminded her of the game that Tanya had made them play at _Breaking Dawn_.

And remembering that night put a sick, empty feeling in the pit of Bella's stomach.

Not because she thought that she'd made a mistake—logically, rationally, it made sense to accept Tanya's offer. To take the money.

But when Bella thought about what she'd done, about what she'd become—just like her mother—she felt a tearing sensation in her chest.

The only thing that made it feel better was Edward.

And not kind, solicitous Edward either. No. Rough Edward.

Bella was self-aware enough to realize that this wasn't healthy. That she was acting out in some perverted attempt to punish herself.

Her brain told her that she'd done nothing wrong. She had prostituted herself, but there was nothing wrong with prostitution. She absolutely believed in decriminalization.

But her body—Or maybe it was her heart—

Either way, something told her that she had seriously fucked up.

She tried to tell herself that it didn't matter.

After all, she'd yet to see a dime from Tanya. _You're not really a prostitute until someone pays you_ , she told herself.

But then she'd remember Edward—and that tearing thing in her chest would get worse.

If Bella was at work at school when the pain began to claw at her chest, she would duck into the bathroom and take an illicit picture of herself and send it to Edward. These pictures were far more risqué than the ones she'd sent in the past. No more teasing lingerie. The images still hid her face, but everything else was on full display. And strange as it might sound, there was something about sending a picture of herself that made the tension in her chest ease up, at least until she could see Edward again.

And when she did see him, she made it quite clear that it wasn't sweet Edward she wanted. She didn't want gentle or nice.

She wanted rough. She wanted to feel used.

And she wanted to go until Edward couldn't go anymore.

Only afterwards, when he was asleep, would Bella allow herself to consider the notion that she had made a mistake in agreeing to Tanya's proposal.

But as she gazed at Edward's sleeping form, Bella consoled herself that at least Edward was enjoying himself. If she had done something wrong, she was making it up with her body. And actions mattered so much more than words.

The possibility that Bella was using Edward never would have occurred to her. Had someone suggested that she was ignoring Edward's preferences—that she was much fonder of rough sex than he was—she would have laughed outright.

To be fair, Edward _was_ enjoying himself with Bella. But he would have preferred a shade less—

Intensity.

That was one way to put it.

When Edward was rough, more often than not, it was because Bella was spurring him on. He was only trying to satisfy her.

But he wasn't unhappy. If anything, he was happier than he could remember being in a long time.

 _It's not just the sex_ , Edward told himself. _It's not_.

Because if it was just the sex, then that would mean he was backsliding into his addiction.

 _It's not that,_ Edward thought. _It's Bella._

Not that Edward was in love. Edward wasn't ready to countenance the possibility that he was actually infatuated.

But he had definitely worked himself up to the point of "in like." Edward was willing to admit that he was "in like."

That in and of itself was momentous.

And as far as he could tell, Bella was right there with him. In fact, she was often the one initiating things between them, the way she would send him a picture—sometimes twice in one day—or coming over to his place in the middle of the night to have sex.

And every time Edward was the one initiating something, Bella was right there with him, willing and able.

She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

And Edward thought that was just dandy.

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One night, Edward woke to find that Bella astride him.

Groaning, he blindly reached for Bella only to realize that his hands were restrained by handcuffs.

The light was dim, but as Edward's eyes adjusted, he could see the outline of Bella's body.

Edward shifted silently, encouraging Bella.

What she did then was fucked up. She knew that. "I want you to tell me something," Bella said, clenching her muscles again but otherwise not moving.

"What?"

"I want you to tell me about that night."

"Which one?"

"I want you to tell me about that night you had sex with a woman and two other men." Bella knew what she was doing was fucked up. And that the _way_ she was asking was wrong.

Edward was sure that he'd heard her wrong. "You want me to what?"

"I want to hear about your night with that woman."

"Why?" Why on earth would she want to know something like that?

"Not like this," Edward said, because even he could tell how fucked up this was.

She squeezed him again and slowly rocked her hips. "Exactly like this."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because you're with me now. Not her."

"It's not like you really compare."

Bella froze.

Edward realized his mistake. "I don't mean it like that. I mean that you're nothing like her."

Bella still didn't move. "What do you mean?"

He sighed. "Really? You want to hear about this?"

"Tell me."

Even though he knew it was wrong, Edward moved his hips, trying to get her to move, but she had pushed herself off of him and was out of reach in a flash.

Straining at his restraints, Edward growled. "What're you doing?"

"You broke the rules," Bella said.

"Please," he begged.

"Then answer my questions."

He couldn't understand why Bella would want to hear about stuff like this. Or why she would want to hear about it _like_ this, but he agreed.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

When Bella woke up, she felt sore all over. It had been a week since she and Edward had enjoyed their marathon sex session. When they were done, Bella knew what the woman she'd asked about felt like. She knew what it felt like to be fucked by three men in a row.

She still didn't know why she'd asked Edward to do that to her.

Or why she'd asked him to do it while fucking him _like that_.

Well, that wasn't quite true was it? She was a little screwed up, and she knew it.

And now, here she was, in Edward's bed, uninvited.

She had come over—using the key that he had given her—knowing that he wouldn't be home, and had crawled into his bed, naked, to wait for him.

But she'd somehow fallen asleep.

Stretching, Bella was brought up short by the realization that she was restrained.

"Tsk, tsk," Edward chastised her. "Don't struggle."

"But I like to struggle," Bella breathed, craning her head to try and see Edward. But he was out of her line of sight.

"Such a naughty girl. You need to be punished for creeping in here, again. Close your eyes. Unless you'd rather sleep."

"I don't want to sleep," Bella answered, quickly closing her eyes as instructed.

She could hear Edward moving closer. Something passed over her face and she felt him tying a knot behind her head. She was blindfolded.

Edward suddenly pulled the blanket off of her, and she gasped at the sensation, shivering as the cool air met her bare flesh.

Starting to pant, she realized that she must look so debauched, lying there for him.

"I'm taking your picture," Edward said. "You like the idea of someone taking dirty pictures of you?"

Bella twisted.

"Answer the question."

"Yes!"

"Why?" he asked.

Bella's thoughts stuttered as she tried to think of a way to explain herself.

"I'm your whore," Bella said, and wondered at herself. Wondered that she could say such a thing—as if she _belonged_ to Edward. She didn't belong to anyone. But _God_ , it had turned her on to say it.

She heard Edward moving again and a click, as if he was opening a box. She felt the tip of a wet brush drawing down one of her arms, from wrist to shoulder.

"You're painting me?" she asked.

"You _are_ a work of art, after all."

Bella didn't answer, her breath catching in her throat as Edward leaned over her, his weight resting on her stomach and legs as he carefully painted something across her clavicle.

"What are you painting?"

"I'm writing, not painting," Edward corrected her.

"What are you writing?"

"Just the words I think of when you come to mind."

Bella's mind immediately went to the term she'd just called herself. Not knowing how she felt about that, she asked, "Like what?"

"Like 'beautiful.'"

Her mind stumbling over this revelation, she felt Edward's weight leave her.

"Like 'lover,'" Edward whispered.

 **AN** **:** __ **As I post this chapter,** _ **Fifty Shades**_ **is playing on USA (a standard cable network). It's 8 pm Eastern time, so 5 pm in California. So it's kind of hard for me to believe that** _ **Corrupting Influence**_ **is really the epitome of perversion that some anonymous reviewers seem to think it is.**

 **A reviewer has asked me if I'm serious about the sex, or if it's just a backdrop for the mental gymnastics of the two main characters, who are working through the trauma of their personal issues. (This reviewer didn't use those exact words; this is my paraphrase.)**

 **Ironically, right before reading this review, I had been complaining to someone I know: "I don't think that anyone who's reading this story is paying attention to the philosophical debates. They just think it's about sex."**

 **Needless to say, I was very happy to see that review.**

 **And to answer the reviewer's question: Yes, I'm serious about the sex. The sex and the philosophy and the mental gymnastics.**

 **I hope that you think that I pull it off.**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	26. Chapter 26

**Warning: This chapter contains a flashback to attempted sexual assault and references to verbal sexual abuse of a minor.**

 **This chapter is censored for sexual content completely unrelated to the above Warning. The uncensored chapter is on Fictionpad.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

" _In the cases in which I have ceased to practice total abstinence, I succeed in observing a limit which is something hardly more than a step removed from total abstinence and even perhaps more difficult—with some things less effort of will is required to cut them out altogether than to have recourse to them in moderation."_ – Seneca the Younger, Letter CVIII, translated by Robin Campbell

Chapter 26

Bella dreamt that she was being pinned against a wall. She struggled, trying to free herself, and the bruising grips on her arms tightened.

"While we're waiting," a voice said, "you can show me if you've got your mother's mouth."

A dark outline loomed over Bella, blocking her sight of the exit in the narrow alley.

"Put her on her knees," the voice said.

"No!" Bella yelled as she renewed her thrashing. A foot hit the back of one of her knees, forcing her down.

Hands held Bella's head in place and yanked on her hair as she tried to wrench herself a way. A sweaty paw forced her jaw open. Her stomach lurched as a hoarse scream tried to work its way out of her throat, but a hand around her windpipe cut her breath off. Rough fingers forced her jaw open and something was invading her mouth. She gagged around the intrusion.

She couldn't believe this was happening.

And then the dream changed. Bella was in a bedroom, her eyes on the gold and cream striped wallpaper.

It didn't actually happen like that, of course. The police showed up that night in the alley, stopping those boys before things could get that far.

Bella's throat was still spasming as she woke.

She lay there for a minute, her hand at her neck and her pulse racing as she reassured herself that it was just a dream.

The fact that she didn't immediately recognize her surroundings didn't help. It took her a while to realize where she was.

Edward's bed.

According to the clock on the nightstand, Bella had only been asleep for about an hour. But Bella knew that she couldn't go back to sleep after a series of dreams like that.

There was a sick feeling in her stomach.

It was irrational for Bella to let a stupid dream upset her so much, or so Bella told herself.

But she knew that this sick feeling was going to follow her all day, tainting everything she did.

Unless she could figure out a way to make it go away.

Not wanting to think about it, she turned and looked at Edward. He was sleeping on his back. Neither one of them was much of a cuddler, which is to say that they would usually fall asleep in each other's arms, but they would inevitably move apart as they grew overheated.

He looked so young when he was asleep. So carefree.

It wasn't the real Edward. At least, Bella didn't think so.

The real Edward, in her opinion, was the guy with the scowl, the mocking smirk.

She glanced back at his face to make sure that he was still asleep, and carefully rolled over to retrieve the handcuffs.

Bella worked gingerly, securing Edward's wrists to the headboard.

And now that she had the opportunity, she examined him at her leisure.

 _What a wondrous thing is man_ , she thought.

But as she studied him, she couldn't help recalling her dream.

She resented the sense of reluctance—the sense of disgust—that still lingered.

Why should she have to feel that way?

Just because the boys in that alley had tried to make her—

That night at Breaking Dawn, when Tanya had pushed her down on her knees, Bella had felt a fleeting sense of panic.

She told herself that it was just the prospect of going through with the deal.

But it wasn't just that. It was the _nature_ of the act that Tanya expected her to perform with Edward _first_.

The same thing those boys had tried to get her to do in that alley before the police appeared.

Bella had followed Tanya's bidding, and Edward had—

He had just gone along with it.

More than that, he had _enjoyed_ it. Or so it had seemed.

Staring down at him now, watching him sleep, she felt a strange urge to find out if he would enjoy it again.

Because she didn't want to just ignore the feelings inspired by that dream. She wanted to run at them full tilt. Push through to the other side. Obliterate them.

 _Obliterate herself._

The truth was, the offensive nature act in question intrigued her.

It inspired curiosity as well as aversion, repulsing her at the same time it fascinated her.

 _Was this how Edward felt when indulging his most corrupt desires?_ she wondered. _Teasing the boundaries_.

She wanted to know what it would feel like to be so debased.

A small part of her said that she was wrong to see it like that—that it wouldn't be debasing, that if she thought of it as such, it was only because of what had happened to her, and because of the censorious judgment of sanctimonious hypocrites.

But she shoved that impulse aside.

Because she _wanted_ it to seem debased. She wanted to feel illicit.

And she wanted to understand what Edward felt, indulging corruption.

Lowering herself over him, she felt him beginning to stir.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

It had not entirely escaped Edward's notice that he was backsliding. At that very moment, he was in the bathroom at work jacking off to a picture he'd taken that morning on his phone. Her face wasn't shown—they'd kept to their old rule on that score—but Edward felt like he would recognize those breasts anywhere by this point.

As much as Edward had despised the moratorium that Bella had placed on his masturbation during the course of their contest, it had served a purpose. His refusal to lose the contest may have ensured that he was walking around with blue balls day after day, but he'd gradually begun to grow used to it. He was getting a handle on his condition (no pun intended).

But now?

Now, it was like he was back at square one.

Well, not quite square one, because Edward had gone from casual hook-ups with random women to something more than casual encounters with one woman in particular. But it was like he couldn't get enough.

He used to spend his breaks trying to think of reasons to not chuck in the towel, quit his job and give it all up.

Now, he spent his breaks thinking about Bella. About all of the things they had already tried and all of the things that he still wanted to try with her.

Edward didn't even bother going to the break room anymore. Instead, he headed straight for the bathroom.

He was back to masturbating at least three times a day. And that was on top of all of the sex that Bella and he were having, almost every day.

It wasn't an easy schedule. Edward put in a lot of hours at work. And he knew that Bella was exhausted, too, between work and school and him.

But he thought that she was happy, the frequent sparkle in her eyes suggesting that she was more than pleased with their arrangements.

And guilty though he occasionally felt about the fact that he was distracting her from her work on the dissertation, Edward wanted Bella with him.

He had started a campaign to convince Bella that she should just stay at his place, regularly. He argued that she could sleep as well at his apartment as hers—even better, probably, without the smell of smoke and an annoying roommate.

He had promised that he would keep his hands to himself so that she could write.

But more often than not, her attempts to work on her dissertation would fizzle out. Bella would draw his eye, oh so innocently nibbling on the end of her pen. Edward would lazily trace his fingers up and down her neck as he sat beside her, reading from a medical journal.

Before long, they'd be shedding clothes and fucking like they were being timed. Like they expected someone to show up at any second and tell them that they'd been cut off, no more fucking for the rest of their lives.

Edward was insatiable.

It was some consolation to Edward that Bella seemed just as insatiable as him.

Which was why it suddenly occurred to Edward—as he stood in a bathroom stall jacking off to a picture of Bella on his phone—that for all he knew, Bella was somewhere masturbating at that very moment.

After cleaning up, Edward returned to work. He was lucky that his caseload that day was light.

And it took some wheedling, and the endurance of some mild-mannered mocking— _yes_ , Edward admitted, _he was taking off to see 'his girl'_ —but Edward got Cheney to agree to cover for him so that he could leave early.

Well, early for Edward. It was almost six in the evening, but Edward knew that Bella was planning to work late that night.

Edward had a rough idea of the location of Bella's office. Nevertheless, he got turned around and had to ask for directions to the history building. Intent as he was upon finding Bella, it wasn't until he stepped out of the rickety elevator on the grad student floor that it occurred to him that he might be overstepping her boundaries by just showing up like this.

Glancing down the hallway, Edward saw what looked like a lounge area and a few offices. Remembering Bella say that she sat in a large open space—the "ballroom," she'd called it—Edward headed in the opposite direction. And as he reached the end of the hallway, the space opened up.

A few students were studiously bent over their desks. Scanning the room, Edward spied Bella in the far corner. She was obviously engrossed in her reading, and didn't look up as he neared her desk.

"Can I—" Bella started, as Edward plopped down in a chair obviously designated for visitors. "Edward." Her face broke out in a grin. "What are you doing here?"

"My shifted ended early, so I figured I'd come and see what real scholars look like in their environment."

"It's not very impressive, I'm sure."

"I beg to differ. Everyone's desk stacked with the most intriguing collection of books—" Edward read the title of a book on the next desk over, the owner of said desk being absent at the moment. " _The Five Senses in Medieval and Early Modern England_. I would assume that they had the same five senses that we do now, but what do I know?" Glancing back at Bella's desk, he raised an eyebrow. "And I get to learn so many new things about you. For instance, you have a philodendron. And you've covered your desk in wrapping paper. _Wrapping paper_." Edward picked at the tape on one of the corners.

"These desks are filthy," Bella said, by way of explanation for the wrapping paper.

"Covered in the sweat and blood of intellectual labor."

"Well labor at least. Maybe not so much intellectual."

Edward was about to ask Bella to explain her comment—was she having trouble with her dissertation?—but he was interrupted by someone calling Bella's name.

Recognizing Jacob from their one encounter at the coffeehouse, Edward gave one of those head jerks by which males of the species communicated, trying to appear un-phased.

It wasn't the fact that he and Jacob had shared a kiss that troubled Edward so much as the lurking suspicion that Jacob was in fact interested in Bella as more than a friend.

"Bella, you up for happy hour?" Jacob asked as he and the other grad students in the "ballroom" began to bundle up, clearly planning to leave for the night.

"No, I've got to work," Bella said. "But thanks."

"Don't work too hard," Jacob replied, in a concerned tone that annoyed Edward. If anyone needed to worry about Bella, Edward would take care of it. He knew damn well how hard Bella was working.

But Edward donned a placid expression, jerking his head at Jacob again before Jacob and the other grad students left, leaving Bella and Edward alone.

"Does he now about us?" Edward asked.

"Who?"

"Jacob."

"Why would he?"

Edward didn't reply.

"You're being ridiculous," Bella told him.

"When he asks you if he can be your fuck buddy, you just tell him that you already have one."

She glared at him for a minute. "Don't be vulgar." Shaking her head, she began to pack up her things. "And I told you, I don't like that phrase."

"And I don't like the way he looks at you."

"Who knew you'd be the jealous type?"

"Jealousy is a base, primal response. I believe in giving in to all of my instincts. Of course, I'm jealous."

What Edward didn't mention was this emotion was rather new for him. He wasn't used to caring about things like that.

Standing, Bella pulled on her jacket—condescending to let Edward take her backpack—and led the way towards the exit. "Well thank God not everyone agrees with you, or cave men would still be dragging women off by their hair."

Edward tugged teasingly on a brown lock. "That's right, now it's cave women dragging men off to their cave."

At his words, Bella came to an abrupt halt. Her eyes had caught sight of the sign for the restroom at the far end of the hallway.

Dropping her stuff on a conveniently placed chair, and bidding Edward to drop her backpack, Bella grabbed his hand and darted down the hall.

"What—?" Edward started to ask but she shushed him.

He didn't catch on to her plan until they reached the door of the lady's bathroom. Pushing Edward through the door, Bella threw the lock on the outer door and then pulled him quickly into one of the stalls.

He recognized this stall.

It was the one that she used to take all of the photos of herself.

"We have to be fast," Bella told him fumbling with his belt. "And quiet."

Afterwards then the furtive nature of their act seemed to hit them, reinvigorating them as Bella unlocked the outer door and peeked down the hallway. The two of them were laughing as they scurried out of the bathroom.

"Don't you want to take the elevator?" Edward asked after they collected Bella's things.

"Are you kidding? We'd probably get stuck on it."

"But think about all of the fun we could have waiting for help to arrive."

Bella just rolled her eyes and continued on down the stairs.

They emerged into one of those fresh autumn evenings when it feels like the air is alive. It had clearly sprinkled while Edward was inside, and the pavement was gleaming, wet leaves swirling in the wind.

"Where're you headed?" Edward asked, following Bella across the quad. He thought that she had the evening free.

"The bus stop. I picked up a last minute shift," Bella explained.

Trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice, Edward took a different tack. "You're going to take the bus in this?"

"It's not raining," she pointed out.

"For once. And lucky for you." Edward leered at her chest.

Bella pulled her raincoat closed. "Apparently, being on a college campus has caused to regress to your teenage years," she complained, but didn't sound very put out. "May I please have my backpack?"

"No. And I can drive you to work."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I don't have anywhere in particular to be right now," Edward said. "So why shouldn't I drive you?"

"Whatever," she gave up.

"Such a bratty response. You might say, 'Why thank you Mr. Cullen. I would be delighted to accept your offer.'"

Adopting a southern drawl, Bella repeated his words. "Why thank you Mr. Cullen. I would be delighted to accept your offer."

"There, much better. And I like it when you call me Mr. Cullen."

"Perv."

Edward replied in kind, and the lighthearted banter continued until they reached Edward's car.

Once he pulled out into traffic, however, the air of frivolity seemed to sour.

Hearing Bella sigh, Edward glanced over at her. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head. "It's just—" She pursed her lips. "I feel bad complaining."

"Tell me," he urged.

She sighed again. "I kind of hate this job. It's the data entry one. And it's kind of mindless." She scowled. "Plus this fucker keeps losing data and blaming it on me."

"Why don't you quit? Concentrate on school."

She huffed. "I want to. I plan to. I just—I can't right now. Soon, I hope."

"Well, I can think of something to help you relax."

Edward could see her turn to watch him in the dim light. "What?" Bella sounded weary, but not necessarily disinterested.

"Reach in the backseat and get the blanket."

She hesitated, but for less than half a minute.

He kept his eyes on the slowly moving traffic as he spoke. "Open the blanket and spread it across your lap." Glancing at her to confirm that she'd complied, he said, "Undo your pants. Pull them down with your panties."

"Edward—"

"It'll put you in a better mood. Make work fly by tonight."

"But—" she stopped.

"What?"

"I'll leak all over your seat," Bella whispered, clearly worried.

"So wrap the blanket underneath of you. It's big enough."

When she'd done as he asked, Edward asked if she was ready.

"What do you want me to do?" Bella asked in reply.

"Just relax. Close your eyes."

Following his instructions, Bella felt the car coming to a stop, and opened her eyes to see that Edward had pulled into the back of a parking lot and stopped.

"Don't worry," Edward assured her. "I'll get you to work on time."

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

The thing about plagiarism is that it's easy to spot most of the time. A student whose barely been getting by all semester, with nearly incomprehensible responses to short essay questions, is unlikely to start spouting prize-winning prose when it comes to turning in a paper, no matter how much time he's had to polish it.

Bella wasn't even through the first paragraph of James' paper, and she knew it had been plagiarized. She came across more chunks of text that were clearly plagiarized as she proceeded through the paper. But more disturbing, in her mind, was the lack of any discernible direction in James' analysis. His argument was contradictory and rambling. The evidence he brought to bear had little or nothing to do with the case he was supposedly asserting. It read more like stream of conscious than anything else—the stream of consciousness of someone who wasn't exactly in touch with reality.

She had no fucking clue where to start. So, when he came in for his appointment, she started with the plagiarism.

"But I don't understand. We're supposed to use the 'best proof.' The instructions say so. Isn't that quotes?" James argued.

"But you can do that without quoting. And technically you didn't quote. You didn't use quotation marks or say where you to took this from." Bella couldn't believe that she had to explain this. "I need you to rewrite all of the parts I've underlined in your own words."

Having resolved the plagiarism issue, Bella moved on to the real problem.

"So the emperor Justinian," she started. "The way you wrote this sentence makes it sound like he really was a demon." Bella pointed to the sentence in question.

"That guy said so," James reminded her, clearly frustrated. "That P- guy."

"That's right. Procopius _said_ that Justinian was a demon. But was that really true?"

Bella waited, but James didn't respond.

She tried to give an example. "Like if I'm mad at the barrista at a coffeehouse and I call her a 'witch.' Is she really a witch?"

"But Justinian married a prostitute," James protested.

Bella's eyes narrowed at James' words, but she held her tongue.

"And his wife had sex with a swan on stage," James continued.

Bella opened her mouth, and then closed it.

She weighed whether or not it would be considered sexual harassment if she asked James exactly how he thought something like that would work, because _come the fuck on_.

And there was a split second where she considered telling him about a script from antiquity involving a puppet—at least scholars figured that a puppet had been used, assuming that the script was ever actually performed.

Bella asked herself if James could handle hearing about something like that.

She asked herself if it was worth asking him if he realized that "Furries" were an actual thing and whether he'd ever seen _Clerks 2_.

Not that she was into Furries.

And she was shocked that _Clerks 2_ made it past the MPAA.

But she didn't really think it was her place to judge Furries—they were consenting adults, after all—and while _Clerks 2_ could certainly be accused of celebrating something that was in fact wrong, and illegal, Bella's study of gender required her to turn off her nausea at times.

She didn't think that James was quite up to the task, however. She could just picture his reaction: His head would spin around and explode.

So instead, she said, "You have to stop believing everything you read." She then spent an hour trying to help him understand the definition of the words "paraphrase" and "defamation."

And by the time that she was done, Bella was exhausted.

Not for the first time, she asked herself what the fuck James was even doing in college. She told herself that he had to be a genius in math or computers or something, because his basic reasoning skills were those of a child.

Despite her frustrating session with James, Bella had a relatively pleasant afternoon. She worked a shift at the library, followed by a rousing run with the dogs that she was still taking out every now and then.

She had certainly recovered her good mood by the time Edward slid into her that night.

"Don't cum until I tell you," Edward ordered.

Bella's hands were scrambling over his back, trying to pull him closer. "Don't cum?"

"Not until I tell you," he told her.

 _Don't cum?_ How was she supposed to do that?

Bella could already feel the coil of heat building in the pit of her belly.

 _Don't cum_ , she thought, collapsing against the bed and panting as she tried to calm down. _Don't cum_ , she told herself, even as her hips continued meeting Edward thrust for thrust.

Bella forced her hips to go down and stay there— _Don't cum_.

She could still feel Edward moving over her and inside of her, the delicious burning in her pussy intensifying, but he had told her not to cum.

" _You popped your cherry yet?"_

The memory of those words flashed through Bella's mind. Why would she think of something like that now?

" _You popped your cherry yet?" He smirked at her, scratching his potbelly and sitting on her mother's couch in nothing but a dirty t-shirt and briefs._

 _Bella ignored him, hurrying for the door so that she could go to school._

 _But she saw him again that night, when he came to see her mother. Renee pulled him quickly through the living room, dragging him towards her bedroom, but he watched Bella as he went, a sickening gleam in his eye._

 _He was one of Renee's best customers, so Bella had to see him several times a month._

 _He never touched Bella, but his comments got increasingly lewd._

" _Don't you let them boys touch you," he said to her one day. "You make sure a real man takes care of that for you."_

" _What are you two talking about?" Renee had asked, coming into the room._

" _Just telling your daughter to watch out for them young punks," Phil replied._

" _You should listen to him Bella," was all Renee had to say to that, and Phil took another swig of his beer._

 _Bella never told her mother about the sick shit Phil was saying to her, or the way he'd looked at her._

 _He had yet to really do anything, after all. And at least he wasn't one of the bastards who liked to take a swing at Renee._

 _So Bella kept her mouth shut._

 _She didn't like him, but he only managed to really scare her one afternoon. She thought that she was alone in the apartment. But there he was, in the doorway of the kitchen._

" _Think your mom'd give me a two-for-one deal?" Phil asked, leering at her._

 _Bella didn't say a fucking thing. She never said a fucking word to him. Always just ignored him._

 _So she didn't bother to reply._

 _She did, however, open a drawer and take out a steak knife, careful not to let Phil see it as she finished putting together her sandwich._

" _I mean, I'm such a good customer," Phil continued. "Figure I deserve a discount. What d'you think?"_

" _Phil, what're you doing baby?" Renee asked, coming up behind him and slipping her arms around his waist._

" _Just sayin' hi to Bella here."_

" _Well come back to the bedroom."_

 _Out of the corner of her eye, Bella saw Renee reaching down to fondle Phil through his jeans_.

"Bella!"

Bella blinked and looked around. She was in Edward's bed. And Edward was shaking her shoulders, trying to get his attention.

"Bella, answer me!"

She shook her head. She didn't want to talk.

She didn't have anything to say.

"Fuck," Edward cursed, pulling Bella up so that she was sitting in his lap. "Are you alright? Talk to me."

"I'm fine," she said, pushing against him.

"What happened to you?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You zoned out. I mean it's like you weren't even here. Like you couldn't even hear me."

 _Shit_. She realized that she had fucked up. "I didn't cum when you said."

She could tell that he wasn't hard anymore. Had he already cum? Or had she fucked that up too?

Edward scowled. "Who gives a shit about that? What the fuck just happened?"

 _He's told other women to cum on his order_ , Bella thought. She was pretty sure that he had played the game with other women, telling them not to cum until he had said so.

And she had fucked it up.

Pulling out of Edward's arms, she went to stand.

"Where are you going?" Edward asked.

"I want to take a shower."

Bella's voice had a dead quality to it that Edward didn't like.

"I'm coming with you," he said, standing too and reaching for Bella.

"Caligula."

"What?" Edward stumbled back a step, his arms dropping.

"Caligula," Bella repeated. She crossed her arms in front of her body, assuming a defensive pose.

Bella had only used their safe word once before, the time that he gave her a book.

He couldn't believe that she would use it _now_ and that she would use it for a _shower_.

And she was watching him warily, like she was going to bolt if he moved so much as an inch.

Edward swallowed. "But you'll come back to bed after your shower. Yeah?"

She hesitated before answering. "Sure."

"Okay."

Bella watched him for a moment longer before she turned and went into the bathroom.

Edward sank down to the bed, and listened as the shower turned on.

The panic that had set in when he realized that Bella wasn't paying attention—that she was lost in some daydream—was now giving way to a sense of dread.

 **AN:**

 **James is based on a series of undergraduates I TAed for. I have had this plagiarism discussion many many many times.**

 **Re: Leda & the swan – While it's very fashionable nowadays to mention fellows like Caligula and Marquis de Sade for their sexual exploits, in so doing I think that we often "normalize" them while glossing over just how f'ed up they really were, because we get off on the frisson of the illicit. And the Edwards in many erotic fics are painted as being so very corrupt, but insofar as they obtain legally recognizable consent from their partners, they aren't in fact all that corrupt. Presenting them as such is part of the mythos that my story is trying to undermine.**

 **Topics like Theodora's performance of Leda and the swan are freely discussed on college campuses with undergraduates. I have left out details that would** _ **not**_ **be left out in those discussions. But anonymous reviewers are free to proceed with their efforts to delete half the Greco-Roman catalogue of mythology from the world's libraries after they get** _ **Corrupting Influence**_ **pulled from this website.**

 **Please don't mistake the reference to Leda and the swan in this chapter to personal interest in the practice. My knowledge of said practice in the modern era is limited to the movie** _ **Clerks 2**_ **(the existence of which kind of undermines the notion that** _ **Corrupting Influence**_ **is all that deviant)** **, various discussions on Elliot in the Morning on DC101 (which I inevitably had to turn off because of nausea), and Richard W. Bulliet's** _ **Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers: The Past and Future of Human-Animal Relationships**_ **. The play that I was referring to (P. Oxy. 4762) can be read online at archive dot org. Also see Martin West, "The Way of a Maid with a Moke: P. Oxy. 4762,"** _ **Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik**_ **175 (2010). Other ancient sources on this sort of practice include Apuleius'** _ **Metamorphosis**_ **10.29; Pseudo-Lucian's** _ **The Ass**_ **; Herodotus'** _ **Histories**_ **2.46; Aelian** _ **NA**_ **6.15, 6.17, 7.19; Longus,** _ **Daphnis and Chloe**_ **4.18; Ovid,** _ **Art of Love**_ **1.289-326; Clement of Alexandria** _ **Education of Christ**_ **11; Strabo 17.1.19; Suetonius,** _ **Nero**_ **12; Cassius Dio 76.8.2-3. Also see J. E. Robson, in** _ **Rape in Antiquity**_ **; and Kathleen Coleman, "Fatal Charades: Roman Executions Staged as Mythological Enactments,"** _ **Journal of Roman Studies**_ **80 (1990): 63-64. Much of the related mythology is collected in Ovid's** _ **Metamorphosis.**_

 **I am including all of these sources as a reminder that this story is intended to treat sexual politics as a thing that should be** _ **thought**_ **about. We should** _ **think**_ **and** _ **talk**_ **about why we are okay with the sex we are okay with, where our boundaries lie, what that says about us, and whether we're really okay with that, so that we're in a better position to stop rapists from taking over the world.** **I think this matters because a** **mong the more horrifying of Bulliet's findings is the fact that youths in the 20th century were so brainwashed into thinking that masturbation was wrong that they actually thought that sex outside the species was preferable, and they put this belief into practice. THAT'S what happens when you try to impose Christian Sharia.**

 **I have no idea if the stories about Justinian's wife are correct. Most scholars seem to believe that Theodora was indeed a prostitute. But Procopius—the source of the stories—was a slandering sexist. If the story about the performance** _ **is**_ **true, I assume it was a puppet.**


	27. Chapter 27

**Warning: Reference to physical abuse of a child in this chapter.**

 **This chapter is censored for sexual content completely unrelated to the Warning. The uncensored chapter is on Fictionpad.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

"The male prostitute, they [certain scholars] assume is a penetratee. Therefore he is Other. Therefore he cannot be a citizen. The problem with these [scholarly] accounts is that they ignore the charge …[that the so-called prostitute] enjoyed sex itself, 'not being used as a sex-object.' He was whorish as well as a whore…Such a bag of inconsistent lust was a dangerous thing to have wandering around the city." – James Davidson _Courtesans and Fishcakes_

Chapter 27

Bella lay with her head resting on Edward's chest, running her hand up and down his arm. She didn't know how he did it—how he dealt with death every day without it tearing him apart.

Ever since "no-orgasm-gate," as Bella was calling it in her head, Edward had been overly solicitous with her, wanting to know how her dissertation was going and whether she was working too hard. He'd called a moratorium on the rough sex and the role playing, which she understood, but she thought that it was blown out of proportion.

So yeah, they had been having sex, and she had checked out. So what? She was following his instructions at the time, wasn't she?

She didn't understand why he was so upset.

She knew, of course, that he would be even more upset if he knew exactly what she'd been thinking about at the time, so she hadn't told him.

But she didn't think it really mattered. All of that bullshit with her mother's "boyfriend" was history. It was "just the way life was."

There was no point in getting hung up on it.

Today, though, was different. Today, Bella was the one with consoling Edward.

"I tried so hard," Edward's voice broke and Bella wrapped her arms around his waist, squeezing.

"It's not your fault," she said, knowing that Edward had, in fact, tried as hard as he could to save the boy.

"And his father. That _motherfucker_. The cops were standing next to his bed, _protecting_ him. They should've let me get to him. The cops should've just let me finish the job they started."

Bella hugged Edward again, privately thinking that Edward was right.

And she wouldn't insult him with platitudes about the fate of assholes who killed their kids. She didn't care if the son-of-a-bitch responsible for putting a ten year old on Edward's operating table went to jail for the rest of his life. It wouldn't be enough.

She could feel Edward's fingers running through her hair. Turning her head, Bella glanced at his face, hoping that at least the dead look in his eyes had retreated.

But it was still there, so Bella moved up to kiss him.

It was meant to be a gentle peck. Bella didn't want Edward to feel like he owed her anything after he'd had such a horrible day.

But Edward pulled her closer, his tongue tracing her lower lip before slipping inside of her mouth.

And then he was suddenly on top of her, having flipped her over so that she was on her back.

His lips moved down to her neck as his hand ducked under her shirt to cup her breast.

"We don't have to, Edward," she tried to reassure him. "We don't have to do anything if you don't want to."

"Please, Bella," he implored, pausing and glancing up, begging her with his eyes. "I _need_ you."

So she captured his lips again, reaching down to fondle him as he pushed up her shirt.

When Edward pushed Bella's hands over her head, she could tell that he wanted it rough, for the first time since no-orgasm-gate.

That was more than alright with her. As much as she enjoyed sweet, solicitous Edward, she preferred it rough.

At the moment, though, there was something that she thought that he'd enjoy more than rough sex.

"I want to feel you _everywhere_ ," she said.

Bella felt Edward shudder at her words—with desire or stress or both, she didn't know, but she wanted to give this to him.

And, to be honest, she wanted this for _herself_.

Edward kissed Bella roughly. "Are you sure?" he asked when he drew away.

"Please. I _want_ it."

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI – CI

Waking up the next morning, Edward took the opportunity to watch Bella as she slept.

She was so fucking beautiful.

He still felt the anger and grief churning inside of him. He could go back to that hospital right then and there, and kill that son-of-a-bitch for what he'd done to that kid.

Yet right alongside that anger and grief, a mess of emotions tore at him. Desire—for Bella. But also anxiety and fear. Even a little joy.

With everything else that was going on, with every fucked up and contradictory impulse swirling around inside of Edward, there was one constant—his need for Bella.

And it had certainly become a need. As sure and powerful as Edward's old addiction to sex. He still wanted sex, of course, but he only wanted it with Bella.

That alone had been a revelation.

He couldn't believe that he'd almost told Bella that he loved her the night before.

Who does that? What kind of a guy just blurts out that he loves someone in the middle of sex? Especially _like that_?

Edward scoffed, remembering his preachy bullshit all those weeks ago.

" _There is no point,"_ Edward had said _. That's the point. And that's why the Marquis de Sade was so fond of anal sex. The futility of it."_

Bella had blinked at him _. "How is anal sex futile?"_

" _It's a waste. It's not like you can get someone pregnant when your dick is stuck in their ass."_ Edward was being intentionally vulgar _. "And the one doing the sticking is the only one really getting any pleasure out of it. That's a real libertine—someone who only cares about their own pleasure. So I suppose you're right about that. About a libertine only caring about himself."_

And now, a few short weeks later, here was Edward falling over himself to confess his affection to Bella while in the very midst of that so-called celebration of futility.

Edward could put it down to the heat of the moment. He could say that he was just so fucking turned on that he couldn't help himself.

But that would be a lie.

He had meant it.

And he had almost slipped again, later, when she was leading him to the shower. And while he was washing her legs. And when they were drying each other off. And when they crawled back into bed.

Not until the word almost slipped out of Edward's mouth had it occurred that he loved her. He'd never felt that way towards a woman before.

He kept firm walls up. He cared for family, sure. He would fuck up anyone who fucked with them—even when that person was him.

But was that love?

Edward didn't trust his family. Even after all of these years, he wasn't entirely sure that they could be trusted not to hurt him.

So how could he claim to love them?

And Bella had a long history of hurting him.

They still liked to play their little games with each other. In fact, they were only together now because of another game—each of them trying to get the better of the other, trying "to corrupt" each other, whatever the fuck that meant.

But things had changed.

 _Edward_ had changed.

He couldn't imagine going back to his old ways. He enjoyed fighting with Bella, yes, but only as foreplay. And if she ever reverted to her old ways, well, it would probably be because he had fucked somehow.

She wasn't perfect. He wasn't stupid. He knew that she had issues.

Leaving aside that incident where she'd checked out during sex, she worked too much and it was hard to get a straight answer out of her about her actual feelings. Not to mention that she was still competitive as hell.

She _had_ to be competitive, though, if Edward was going to take any interest in her. If she had just given in to his advances, she wouldn't be the woman that he—

That he loved.

But did that mean that he trusted her?

Bella had given him so much. Not just last night, but also in choosing him, in putting up with him.

Could he try to trust her a little more?

 _Just do it, you pussy_.

An irresistible urge welled up inside of Edward's chest to tell Bella everything.

Right then. That very moment.

He wanted to wake her up so that he could tell her that he loved her.

It wasn't just some post-coital glow. It wasn't an idle fancy. It wasn't gratitude for what she'd let him do to her.

Maybe he didn't know what love was. But this was just the closest he'd ever come to the emotion.

"Creeper." The word was barely above a whisper. "You into voyeurism now?" Bella asked, her eyes still closed.

Edward smiled. "Only when you're the one I'm watching." He kissed the tip of her nose. "I'll start the coffee."

"You sure about that?" Bella asked.

Swallowing, he pulled away. "Actually, I wanted to talk to you."

Bella's brow furrowed as she opened her eyes and looked at him.

"It's nothing bad," Edward tried to reassure her. "Well, it is. But it isn't."

 _Fuck_. He was already screwing this up.

"Just, I need to talk to you and I want to have some caffeine in me before I do." It was an evasion. What Edward really wanted was the two of them fully dressed and somewhere other than the bedroom when he had this conversation with Bella.

She still looked worried when he got out of bed, but he figured that there was nothing that he could do about that. So he quickly threw on some clothes and headed to the kitchen to make coffee.

Bella followed a few minutes later and sat down at the table, silently watching Edward as he fixed each of them a cup.

Handing Bella her coffee, Edward sat, trying not to give in to his sudden nerves.

"Just tell me," Bella said, the note of anxiety in her voice proof enough that Edward was fucking up already.

Taking a breath, Edward started. "It's about last night. What we did."

Bella's eyes widened.

Edward struggled to find the right words. He knew that he couldn't just blurt out his feelings towards her. She deserved to know the whole truth about him first. "It's just too much. I can't—it's too much for me." Edward shook his head.

Bella started blinking rapidly as her breathing picked up.

"I mean, we have sex all of the time. And when you're not here, I'm talking to you on the phone masturbating or I'm looking at a picture of you and I'm masturbating. It's too much. And then when I see you again, we're having sex again. I can't keep doing it."

 _There_ , he'd done it. He'd told Bella about his problem.

He swallowed, waiting for Bella to say something.

But it took her a minute to respond.

And by then, her hands had curled into fists and she was staring at something over Edward's head. "Oh, okay," Bella said hoarsely. "I'll just go then." She started to rise.

 _What the fuck!_

Edward stood to stop her from leaving.

"I don't want you to go," Edward said. "I don't mean that I want you to go." _Fuck!_ "I'm not saying it right. I'm trying to tell you— What I'm trying to tell you is that—"

"That you don't want me anymore," Bella supplied, her voice cracking. "It's alright. I—"

"No! That's _not_ what I'm trying to say. _Goddammit_. This is just so hard to say. I feel like an idiot." Edward felt like punching himself in the face.

A single traitorous tear spilled down Bella's cheek. "Whatever it is, just say it."

"I think that I have a problem. With sex."

Bella cocked her head, as if she wasn't sure that she'd heard him right.

Because she had expected him to confess that he was having sex with someone else, or that he wanted to.

He clearly didn't have impotency issues, that one time aside—

"I think about it all of the time," he continued. "I lied to you all of those weeks ago about how much I was masturbating. I've been trying to get a handle on it for a couple of months now. That night I took you and Alice sightseeing was a low point for me. I wasn't having random sex with women anymore, but it was taking all of my willpower. And I was still masturbating so much. I stopped that—because of our contest—but now I've started again. Plus all of the sex that we're having. And it just keeps getting kinkier and kinkier, which is one of the symptoms, you know, or maybe you don't, but it is."

"I don't understand," Bella said.

She wasn't letting him touch her—she held up a hand when he reached for her—but at least she was meeting his eyes again.

"I use sex for stress relief—like last night, but like all of the time. And I was getting better. But I can tell that I'm losing control again. I've _lost_ control. I nearly lost my job because of this. I nearly lost my family because of this. And everything we keep doing is making it worse."

Bella just stared at him.

She didn't know what to say.

It didn't make any sense.

He was a _sex addict_?

She knew that was a thing, and she knew that Edward had a large appetite, but she never would have connected the two.

It defied logic.

 _This_ wasn't the same man who'd bragged to her of his libertine excesses.

 _This_ was a man who couldn't help himself.

 _This_ wasn't a man who enjoyed his freedom to the utmost.

 _This_ was a man who had no freedom, because he was an addict.

And so much of their relationship now focused on sex.

For a split second, during Edward's speech, Bella had felt like he was describing her instead of himself. Because Bella thought about it all of the time.

Everything reminded her of him. And of sex, with him.

In fact, Bella sometimes found it difficult to focus on anything else.

And even when she was sore from all of the sex they were having, she would push herself to go another round. Instead of taking the break that she knew that she needed, she would entice him for more, because she needed it.

It made the panic go away.

"The thing is," Edward continued.

 _Fuck!_ Bella panicked. _There's more?_

"I don't just want to have sex with you."

 _What the fuck does that mean?_ Bella wondered.

And the expression on Edward's face wasn't particularly reassuring. If anything, he looked even more nervous than he had before. "I want a relationship with you. Like a real relationship."

Bella felt the tears return, and this time she couldn't do anything to hold them back.

Because she didn't know how to process what he was telling her.

 _Was he saying—_

Unfortunately, the sight of Bella's tears just made Edward's anxiety spike.

"I get it," he said. "If you don't want anything to do with me. I'm a fuck up. Even without all of this, you know how I grew up. You know how fucked up I am. You don't need this. I know that you don't need me. But I want you. And I'll try to get better. I'm just asking you for a chance."

Bella's hand came up to her mouth as a sob escaped her lips.

She had refused to let herself contemplate anything beyond the present. She enjoyed her time with Edward. She wanted that time to keep going.

And going and going.

She hadn't even considered the possibility that it might come to an end.

No, that was a lie. She had imagined the end—the dark and terrible moment when it all ended.

But that was too much to handle.

So, instead she'd focused on the present. Because, here and now she and Edward were—

They were doing whatever it was they were doing.

Which included lots and lots and lots of sex. Edward was right about that alright. Bella realized that, like him, she was using sex for stress relief. She was using it to avoid thinking about her dissertation (which was going nowhere), her students (who, as much as she loved teaching, were a challenge), work (which was killing her), her father (who was declining more and more every day), and, ironically, her relationship with Edward (because fucking was easier than wondering what it meant that they were fucking or where they might be headed with that).

But Bella had a key to his fucking apartment for God's sake. What the fuck did she think was happening?

And God help her, Bella wanted more. She wanted everything they were already doing and she wanted it with the security of knowing that Edward was really there for her.

She wanted a real relationship with Edward.

So what if he was a fuck up? So was she. Far more so than him—he still had no idea what she had done to him, after all.

"Yes," Bella said, smiling through her tears. She threw herself at Edward. "Yes, yes," she laughed through her tears, her arms circling his neck. "I want you too."

She was going to tell him. Edward had to know everything. About Tanya. The money. The plan.

They'd already come through so much together. All of the bullshit when they were teenagers. Renee. Port Angeles. They could get through this.

Edward would understand.

It was just a game. He liked games

And Tanya was out of it. She'd been completely MIA ever since Breaking Dawn.

Besides, everything that Bella had done, it was for her father. Edward had to understand that.

Gathering her strength, Bella pulled away from Edward and put a hand to his cheek. "You said that you're fucked up," she said, her voice still quavering. "But I'm the one who's really fucked up."

Edward shook his head. "Don't say that."

Bella opened her lips to argue, only to be cut off by the sound of her ringtone. She glanced at the clock. It wasn't even seven in the morning. Unless it was somehow asshole East Coast telemarketer with no concept of time zones, the only people who would be calling her this early were—

She looked back at Edward, an ominous feeling spreading through her limbs.

Which was crazy. It was just some asshole telemarketer. She was sure of it.

"I'm sorry," Bella said, drawing out of his arms. "I don't know why someone would be calling me this early. Just let me see who it is."

Bella sensed Edward following her as she went into the living room to get her phone. Her heart leapt into her throat when she saw the caller ID.

"Hello?" she answered.

"Miss Swan?"

"Yes."

"I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, and over the phone, but your father passed away thirty minutes ago."

 **AN: Thanks for reading.**


	28. Chapter 28

**Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

" _Nothing is durable._ " – Seneca the Younger, Letter XCI translated by Robin Campbell

Chapter 28

Edward was watching as the color drained out of Bella's face as she listened to whatever was being said to her on the phone.

When she started to sag, as if a puppet master had suddenly and unexpectedly cut her strings, Edward wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her towards the sofa.

He could hear the person on the phone calling Bella's name, asking if she was still there. But Bella's eyes had taken on a vacant look, tears silently leaking out of the corners.

She didn't try to resist when Edward took the phone from her. "Hello, this is Dr. Edward Cullen. Isabella Swan's boyfriend. Can you tell me what's going on?"

The individual on the phone identified himself, explaining that he was calling from Mercy Clinic. "Unfortunately, Miss Swan's father passed this morning. As she knows, he was declining for some time now."

Cursing quietly, Edward glanced at Bella.

She'd gone rigid in his arms after wiping away the tears. And now she was sitting ramrod straight, staring at some invisible spot on the carpet, the muscles in her jaw working as she balled her hands into fists in her lap.

"If Miss Swan wants to see her father prior to transport, she should come in this morning," the caller concluded.

"Alright," Edward replied. "Do you need to know her plans right now or can we call you back?"

"You don't need to call ahead. Just come on in."

Edward thanked him and disconnected the call.

"Bella?" he asked, squeezing her arm.

Her watery eyes met his.

"I'm so, so sorry," he said.

Edward didn't know how he expected her to react, but the blank stare he was receiving seemed off.

"Do you want to see him?" Edward asked. "Do you want to see your father?"

Bella cringed, then nodded, a single jerk of the head.

"We have to go this morning then," he explained.

Without a word, Bella started to stand and Edward steadied her, following her into the bedroom and helping her find clothing, her movements still jerky and uncoordinated. He helped her dress, then quickly changed as Bella sat on the bed, staring at nothing again, tense and silent.

It didn't seem normal.

But Bella wasn't _trying_ to be weird. She _knew_ that she ought to be grieving.

Like the maidens in all of those old Greek vases, she ought to be rending her clothes and tearing out her hair.

And Bella wanted to—she wanted to scream and claw and destroy everything in sight.

There was a vacant chasm inside of her that was swallowing her from the inside out.

The pain of it was more than she thought that she could stand.

At the same time, Bella couldn't shake the sensation that she was dreaming. Everything seemed muffled—colors strangely indistinct and sounds stifled. Every movement seemed to require extra effort, too, as if Bella was trying to do everything underwater.

Bella couldn't cry. She couldn't scream. She could barely hold herself together.

She didn't even pay attention as Edward pulled her from the apartment. The next thing she knew, they were in the elevator, and Edward had wrapped her up in his arms and was kissing her forehead. She stayed there, wrapped in his arms and not moving, until they reached the garage.

Befuddled as she was, she opened her mouth to tell him that he didn't need to drive her to the clinic.

He had to work, didn't he? She could catch the bus.

But the effort of pushing noise out of her throat was just too much, so she let Edward put her into his car and even fasten her seatbelt for her.

After starting the car, Edward turned to her. "Can you give me directions to Mercy Clinic?" He could have checked his GPS. He was asking mainly out of a desire to get Bella to say something, anything.

A look of confusion passed over Bella's face. Pressing a hand to her forehead, she closed her eyes. "It's on that street."

Edward didn't like how muddled she sounded. Or the low, guttural sound of her voice, like it physically hurt her to get the words out.

"Um, I take the J5 bus to get there," she continued. "It's next to the high rise. It starts with an F. I don't—I don't remember."

"It's okay. I'll just look it up." Edward began tapping at his GPS.

They made the drive in silence. After a few blocks, Edward reached over to take one of Bella's hands to keep her from ruining the scarf he'd wrapped around her neck before leaving. She had been picking at the frayed yarn in agitation.

"Will you come with me?" she asked, an unexpected note of real fear entering her voice. "To—to see?"

Edward knew what she meant. "You don't have to if you don't want to."

She inhaled sharply. "Yes I do. I _have_ to."

"Of course I'll come with you."

Some of the panic seemed to leave her at his answer, and she settled back against her seat.

"There might be hospital equipment," Edward said, not wanting to make her panic again, but wanting her to be prepared. "It might be a little frightening."

Bella didn't respond.

"Destination on right," the sickly sweet voice of the GPS coolly announced.

Edward switched off the GPS, irrationally angry at the thing for delivering the directions so calmly, and parked as close as possible to the entrance.

Edward exited the car and went around the front to help Bella out. But when he opened Bella's door, her eyes were closed and her head was resting against the back of the seat. She held out a shaking hand.

"I just need a minute," she said before pressing a hand against her mouth.

"Do you feel like you're going to be sick?" Edward asked. He ran his fingers over her cheek, noting the clamminess.

Bella didn't answer, opting instead to concentrate very carefully on breathing.

A few minutes later, she opened her eyes and turned to face Edward, her expression resolute as she began to climb out of the car.

Edward helped her out, and supported her as they made their way to the entrance of the clinic.

"Third floor," Bella said, once they'd made it through the doors.

They took the elevator, and once they'd reached the third floor, Bella pointed the way to her father's unit.

Edward led the way down the hallway. And he did the talking once they reached the nurse's station.

It was a good thing that he was there to take the lead, because Bella certainly wasn't up to it.

She was trying to keep up—trying to pay attention as the nurse led them to a room and explained something about some sort of medical equipment.

 _What about the equipment?_

Bella didn't understand.

Everything seemed muted. And Bella still felt nauseous—

 _Oh my G—_

Bella stumbled backwards and would have fallen had Edward not been holding her.

She had never imagined this.

She never would have imagined her father looking like this.

She had never seen anything more terrifying in her life.

It wasn't right. It wasn't right. It wasn't right.

How could he look like this?

Like himself and yet not himself. Like a waxen doll made for some unholy purpose.

Bella had been expecting her father to still look like himself, or at least to look like the thing she'd grown used to seeing in that hospital bed. Even that sick creature was better than this.

The worst part was the _familiarity_ of it. She recognized that look.

Like a zombie from a Hollywood movie. The gray flesh and the mouth hanging open.

It was gross.

Literally and horrifically _gross_.

Because how could she think of her father in such a way—like a fairy tale monster? And how could Hollywood do such a thing?

Bella had always assumed that zombies were a caricature.

They weren't a caricature. They were a fucking mockery.

And then Bella realized that at least some of her horror was derived from an irrational fear that her father's body would suddenly rear to life and attack her.

And she hated herself. She fucking _hated_ herself.

She hated herself for ever watching zombie movies.

And more than anything, she hated herself for the fact that she _hated_ , absolutely _hated_ , that she was standing there looking at her father's dead body.

Because she would have given anything to be anywhere else. But this was her _father_. What the fuck was wrong with her? She ought to be grateful for this opportunity to say goodbye.

But _no_. This _thing_ wasn't her father. It was a lifeless husk.

The idea of touching it filled her with horror.

And she hated herself for feeling that way.

Wasn't she supposed to touch his hand? Kiss his forehead?

She couldn't possibly—

They'd never been a physically affectionate family—

She felt like she was going to vomit again.

And believing that a person should bid farewell to a corpse was nonsensical. There was no heaven or hell. Her father was just gone. _Gone._ There was nothing to say goodbye to. There was a void now where he used to be—a void in his flesh and a void in Bella.

She only came to the hospital because she was supposed to come. She knew that he was gone. She knew that thing on the table wasn't her father.

But this was the last time she was going to see him.

 _You stupid bitch!_ Bella cursed herself, because it had been months since she had enjoyed a real conversation with her father. He'd been too sick to really notice her presence when she visited. It was as if he was already dead.

And it had been weeks since she'd visited him. The nurses had told her that he was sleeping most of the time. They had actually discouraged her from coming.

She had gone along with it because it was easier for her that way. Watching her father deteriorate had been a special kind of agony.

It wasn't as if she was really abandoning him, after all. She was working her ass off to finish school and to come up with the money for that new treatment. She was trying to help him.

 _You were pretending_ , Bella chastised herself.

 _Pretending_. That was it. Bella had been pretending that her father could still be saved. The truth was, he'd died months ago. The machines were keeping his body alive, but that wasn't her father, not really.

 _It's better this way,_ Bella told herself _. He isn't suffering anymore._

That was the rational way to look at it.

So, even though every molecule of her body said _fuck that,_ Bella forced herself to focus on the facts. She pushed away her feelings, telling herself to be rational.

 _Be like Cicero_ , Bella told herself. This was an odd sentiment, perhaps, for a young woman gazing at the corpse of her father in a hospital room in Seattle, Washington, just over a decade into the third millennium. But Bella was the sort of woman for whom the contents of a book mattered much, much more than what a person might say.

So Bella told herself to remember Cicero's _Tusculum Disputations_.

And Cicero said that death was nothing to fear.

 _There's nothing to fear_ , Bella told herself.

That sick feeling inside of her—the void that appeared the instant she heard that her father was dead—it was all in her head.

There was no meaningful difference in her situation now that her father was dead. In every detail that really mattered—her career, her socioeconomic status—nothing had changed.

She had to get a grip on herself, like Cicero.

The _Tusculum Disputations_ was inspired by the death of Cicero's daughter, Tullia. If he could survive the death of a child, then Bella could survive the death of her father.

Cicero had said that a person must do his duty. Respect was paramount. But this shouldn't become excessive. Moderation in all things.

Bella realized that she'd been staring at her father for several minutes. Long enough, surely.

Tugging at Edward's hand, Bella indicated her desire to leave the room and he asked if she was sure.

She didn't trust her voice just yet, so she just nodded.

She was glad that Edward had come with her.

Following him to the administrator's desk, Bella realized that Edward saw death everyday, and she realized for the first time just how admirable that was. She recalled how overwhelmed he had been by the death of that boy the day before. But that just proved Edward's bravery. He wasn't dead to the horrors that he saw.

The administrator had some papers for them. Bella looked at them but she couldn't read the words. Her vision was blurry for some reason. So she just gave them to Edward.

Then the administrator told them to expect a phone call from a funeral home and Bella realized that it was over. It was time for her and Edward to leave the hospital.

 _Thank him_ , Bella told herself. _It's appropriate to thank the people who have helped you and your father through this time._

So Bella did. She thanked the administrator.

And as she and Edward passed the nurse's desk, Bella thanked the nurse who'd showed them to her father's room.

All of these people had been so very solicitous on this, the worst day of Bella's life.

It was perhaps the kindest thing anyone had ever done for Bella.

"Thank you for coming with me," Bella told Edward when they were back in the car, the fog that had been surrounding her slowly beginning to dissipate. She still felt queasy, but steadier. Things weren't so muted.

"Of course," Edward told her. "You know I'm here for you."

Bella didn't reply. She knew that Edward was saying the appropriate words—the words that he was supposed to say.

Not that she doubted that he believed them.

But there was no need for words like this once a person realized that there was nothing to fear about death.

Bella didn't need words like this, appropriate or not.

The void inside of her was already getting smaller. She could feel it shrinking.

So she was surprised when Edward missed the turn onto her campus.

"Where are you going?" she asked, craning her head to look back at the history building.

"Back to my apartment."

"I have to go to class."

Edward scoffed. "You're not going to school today."

"But I have to teach." Bella felt anxiety blooming inside of her.

"Hell no. I'm going to take care of you today."

Bella shook her head. "You have work and I can't miss class."

"Of course you can."

Bella felt the anxiety shift quickly into anger. Why was Edward doing this? "I have to go to class." What the fuck did he expect her to do? Sit around in his apartment all day?

 _Sit around and fucking —_

The void inside of her opened up again into a yawning chasm and it was going to swallow her hole.

 _No. No. NO!_

"Take me to school or I'll take myself there," Bella warned. Her right hand dropped to the handle of the door, as though ready to hop out of the car at the first red light.

It was fucking crazy. Bella didn't have any of her books on her. They were still at Edward's. And she didn't really have to go to class. She knew that she could have gotten a TA to cover her discussion section. Her professors would have understood.

But at school she wouldn't have to think about anything she didn't want to think about. By going to school, she would—by her own example—proving that death was nothing to fear.

 _And if Edward didn't let her out of this fucking car she was going to fucking_ —

Edward had pulled up to the curb and was studying her face. "I'm sure your professors wouldn't mind—"

"This is my dissertation, Edward!" Bella snapped. "I can't afford any setbacks."

He seemed to mull it over. "Have breakfast with me. Eat something. And if I don't think you're up to it, you're not going."

Bella knew that the sudden impulse to tell him to go fuck himself was utterly irrational— _It wasn't his job to monitor what she fucking ate—_ but she knew that he thought he was doing what was best for her. "Fine."

"But you're spending tonight at my place," Edward told her.

"Fine."

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Bella managed to muddle through her day—even without her books and, more importantly, the day-planner on which her life depended—but she was just going through the motions, on high alert the entire time, waiting for the funeral home to call.

Bella almost felt like she was outside of herself, watching herself scribble names and dates on the board in the discussion. Her own voice sounded strange in her ears, somehow off. She knew that she wasn't at her best. And she was anxious the entire time, afraid that the funeral home would call while she was in the middle of class and she'd miss the call.

Not that it mattered. She'd get the voicemail. But it seemed important to get that call, to know the instant that the next stage of this process started. Bella felt like she was stuck in suspended animation, and that she'd stay there until everything was resolved.

 _Resolved_. Like it was a fucking problem.

No one came to Bella's office hours. That was probably a good thing—since Bella wasn't exactly at her best—but she couldn't bear the quiet of her own thoughts at the moment.

She was thinking about everything and nothing all at once, her thoughts spinning in circles, feeling simultaneously anxious and exhausted— _How is that even possible?_ —and like nothing was real even though she knew damn well that it was all real, all too real.

Trying and failing to pass the time with some light reading, Bella sought out Jacob's company. Once again, she felt like she was outside of herself, watching as a Bella-puppet forced itself to act along as Jacob joked and teased. When he asked if she was feeling alright, Bella said that she thought that she was coming down with something.

Midway through the afternoon, the funeral home finally called.

Bella's heart leapt into her throat with the vibration of the phone against her leg. That sick, empty feeling inside of her came back and her voice was low and gravelly when she answered.

They wanted to schedule an appointment.

An appointment.

She didn't know what she thought was going to happen when they finally called—

But she'd expected more than this.

Bella felt as if she'd been walking around all day with a gaping wound, and the person who was supposed to tell her how to fix it had just said: _Sorry, I can't do fuck-all about how you feel right now, but maybe if you come in sometime, I'll take a look at your injury, if I feel like it_.

Her shift at the library that evening was positively hellish. The quiet was unbearable. Every breath, every beat of her heart—she felt like it was thundering in her head. She put in her ear buds and queued up a thrasher band, turning up the volume well above the level said to cause the hearing damage, relaxing as the soothingly angry chords washed over her.

Edward had insisted on picking Bella up after work, but he was late getting out of surgery. And when he rushed out of the OR, he was surprised, and pleased, to find a text saying that Bella was downstairs, waiting for him in the hospital cafeteria.

He found her staring blankly at the table. Her face still bore that haunted expression from the morning, but he decided to ignore it, for now.

"Thanks for meeting me here," he said, pulling her up from the table. For some reason, it felt good to have her here, slipping so seamlessly into another part of his life. He thought about kissing her, and decided to just wrap an arm around her waist instead.

She shrugged. "I didn't feel like waiting." She sounded listless.

He pulled her towards the line, not because the food at the hospital was particularly appetizing, but because Edward was hoping that Bella would be able to find something appealing in the wide selection.

Edward didn't comment when she chose a small, wilted salad, but he grabbed an extra sandwich, hoping that she would condescend to at least try it.

Instead, she mainly watched him eat, barely picking at her salad.

"We can go somewhere else if you want," Edward offered. His kitchen wasn't stocked with much.

Bella shook her head. "I'm not hungry."

He frowned. "You ate lunch, right?"

"Yeah." It was true. She'd eaten one of the granola bars that she kept in her desk.

"I don't know how you can stand it," Bella said then, a propos of nothing, the callous nature of her words belied by her listless tone.

Edward followed her gaze, and saw a mother trying to feed her child. The latter was in a cast.

"It's hard seeing so much heartache," he replied. He'd certainly gotten his fill of that the day prior.

"It's more than that. It's the smell and the look." Bella's eyes were running over the ugly blue walls of the cafeteria. "It's _everything._ I _hated_ visiting my dad. _Hated_ it. I didn't go as often as I should have."

Edward was surprised by the sudden venom in Bella's voice. "I'm sure your father knew that you cared about him."

Bella snorted, but didn't argue with him.

Edward insisted on getting the extra sandwich wrapped up so that they could take it home for Bella to eat later. She rolled her eyes, but didn't protest.

And when they swung by her apartment so that she could pick up a few changes of clothes, Edward went in with her, forcing himself to ignore the ever-present scent of cigarette smoke.

"I don't need you to watch me," Bella complained—but not harshly—as she threw some clothes into a bag.

"I know," Edward said.

Again Bella rolled her eyes, letting the matter drop.

Back at Edward's apartment, he tried to convince Bella to come to bed.

"You have to sleep," Edward argued.

"I'm not tired," she lied—as she powered up her laptop—though she had condescended to changing into sleep clothes. "And I have work to do."

"You can work another time."

"I have to work _all_ of the time. That's how a dissertation gets finished."

"You're not going to make any progress on it tonight," Edward continued to argue.

Bella ignored him, peering at the screen instead.

So Edward sat on the sofa, a medical journal in hand as he surreptitiously watched Bella.

She was clearly too exhausted to work. She would stare blankly at the screen for minutes at a time, then shake herself and refocus her gaze, only to end up staring blankly at the screen again.

When it was obvious that Bella had nodded off, Edward decided that enough was enough. He was impressed that she had managed to fall asleep sitting up, but she needed to go to bed.

She disagreed. "Caligula," Bella said, her words slurring as she pushed against Edward's chest.

"You were asleep," Edward pointed out, his arms still around her waist. "Just come lay down with me."

Bella looked uncertain.

"Seneca would say that you shouldn't push yourself," Edward reminded her.

Bella seemed to mull that argument for a minute. "You have to be moderate," she nodded. "Cicero would have agreed."

Happy that she seemed to be giving in, Edward tried to keep her talking as he pulled her to the bedroom. "Cicero? The one who said that all you need in life is a garden and a library?"

"The same one," Bella confirmed, as Edward got her situated in the bed.

"He was so proud of his library," Bella said. "He wrote to his friends about how excited he was to have it finally put together."

Climbing into bed beside her, Edward chuckled. "So not a moderate when it came to his books, eh?"

There was a beat of silence. "He wrote a book when his daughter died," Bella explained, her tone changing. "About how death wasn't a thing that you should be afraid of."

Edward slipped an arm around Bella's torso.

"It's a good book," she said.

"You've read it?"

Bella nodded. "He doesn't really talk about his daughter. But he loved her so much. He collapsed when she died and went away to Tusculum. That's why his book is called the _Tusculum Disputations._ "

"So the book was his way of dealing with his grief?"

Bella drew away from Edward slightly, angling her head to look at his face, nearly invisible in the dim light. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that he wrote the book to help himself cope with his daughter's death."

"You mean like he didn't actually believe what he wrote?"

Edward could hear the note of anxiety in Bella's voice.

"I'm sure he meant it," Edward tried to reassure her.

Bella seemed somewhat mollified, lying back against the pillows again. "Cicero wouldn't do that." Bella said, but it sounded as if she was trying to convince herself as much as Edward. "Not about something like this."

"I'm sure you're right."

Edward heard Bella's breath hitch and cursed his big fucking mouth.

"He wouldn't lie," Bella insisted, her voice full of tears.

"It's just a book," Edward reasoned, wanting to put the issue in perspective.

But it was the wrong thing to say.

"It's not _just_ a book!" Bella snapped, pushing away from him once more. "It's _true_!"

"I didn't mean it like that."

"You haven't even read it. You don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm sorry."

Ignoring Edward, Bella laid down again, this time rolling over on her side.

When he touched her arm, she shoved his hand away. "Caligula!"

Edward blinked, shocked. "Bella, I'm sorry," he said, repeating his apology.

"Just leave me alone," Bella ordered.

So Edward rolled over onto his back and stared up at the blackened ceiling, thankful that at least she was staying in his bed.

Several hours later, Edward woke up, overwhelmed by the sensations he was feeling. Bucking his hips unconsciously, Edward reached down, his hands tangling in Bella's hair. As good as it felt, he didn't think that they should be doing that right now.

"I'm sorry," she said, when he nudged her back. "I'm sorry for being such a bitch when you're being so nice to me."

"You don't have to apologize," Edward replied, his voice gravelly with sleep and lust. "And you're not being a bitch. You're allowed to be upset right now."

Bella's head dipped back down, but Edward pulled her away again. "You don't have to do that," he told her.

"I need to," she replied. "I know what you told me yesterday—about—your problem. And I'm sorry, but I _need_ you." Her voice broke on the last part of her sentence.

"You can have me baby." Edward drew Bella up and kissed her gently.

But it wasn't enough.

"Kiss me harder," Bella urged, tugging on Edward's shoulders, urging him to follow her as she flipped over onto her back.

All day long, a sick, hollow sensation had been growing inside of Bella as she watched herself go through the motions.

And that feeling still haunted her. She felt like she was watching herself on that bed with Edward, gazing down from a high corner in the room.

She didn't want to feel like that anymore. If only for a few minutes, she wanted to feel like she was back in her own skin. Back in the real world.

Bella wanted to _feel._

But Edward was hesitating again. "Bella, you've had such a hard day."

"Please," she cried, and for once it wasn't a cry of pleasure, it was a cry full of tears.

Bella was begging, but it wasn't because they were playing one of their games. "I know that I'm using you. I know it's fucked up. And I promise we can start over tomorrow. But right now, I just need you."

Edward wasn't sure that what she was proposing was in either of their best interests. He loved her, though. God he loved her. And if this was what she said that she needed—even if he thought that she might be wrong—then he'd give it to her.

 **AN:**

 **Bella's reaction to her father's death is based on my reaction to my mother's death.**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	29. Chapter 29

**Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

" _The body's needs are few: it wants to be free from cold, to banish hunger and thirst with nourishment; if we long for anything more we are exerting ourselves to serve our vices, not our needs."_ – Seneca the Younger, _Consolation to Helvia_ translated by C. D. N. Costa

Chapter 29

For the three days following the death of Bella's father, Bella spent most of her time operating on automatic pilot. She didn't force Edward to have sex with her again—and that was just how she saw that night, too, as if she'd _forced_ him to have sex with her, and she felt horrible for it after what he'd told her about his addiction. But, since she wasn't having sex to relieve her anxiety, she was only managing to get by because she was intentionally pushing herself to the point of exhaustion and beyond. She was simply too tired to be anxious.

Oh, she was out-of-sorts. She was hovering on the edge of black abyss with a lurking shadow right on the edge of her vision. Yet she was too tired to do more than realize it was there.

People noticed that she seemed off.

She told them that she was just working hard.

Which was true. They thought that she meant that she was working hard on her dissertation. But she couldn't focus well enough to even go near it. She was throwing herself into a myriad number of side projects—she cleaned Edward's apartment from top to bottom, she helped one of her advisors rearrange his office, she took over one of Angela's discussions, she organized books for the history department book sale, she walked when she normally took the bus, she photocopied tests for the department secretary, and every time someone asked her if she was ok, she said that she was just tired.

Her father was none of their fucking business. He belonged to her, not them.

And just the thought of mentioning him pushed Bella to the brink—

In fact, it was the only time Bella even thought of crying.

Bella picked up extra shifts at the library and at the data entry center. She was too mentally exhausted to pick up any more tutoring gigs—she wasn't an idiot—but she let it be known that she was on the lookout for more dog-walking assignments.

She was shelving books the day after her father's death, when it suddenly occurred to her that it was all a waste of time. She had been working herself to death to pay for her father's new treatment. And now that he was—

She nearly threw up.

But she didn't go home. The thought of sitting alone in her apartment with nothing but those four walls to distract her made her want to start screaming.

Meanwhile, Edward was nothing but attentive. He would text her several times a day, just to say that he hoped her day was going well.

Bella would stare at his texts, at a loss for what she should say. At first, she had replied with a "Fine, thx," but that was a lie, wasn't it? And repetitive. So she stopped replying altogether.

She was, however, spending every night at his apartment.

Bella would argue that she needed to go back to her place. Terrified though she was of the prospect of being alone, she hated the way she was imposing on Edward. Finally, Edward—fed up with arguing with her on the subject—said that he didn't want to be on his own. He said that it was easier, with his condition, if she was there to distract him.

It was true.

And yet not true.

With Bella by his side, it was usually hard to think of anything but sex.

With everything she was going through, though, it was the easiest thing in the world.

The part of the dutiful boyfriend was something of a revelation for Edward. He'd never been solicitous of anyone else's needs. He was surprised to discover how easy it was.

The day after Bella's father died, Edward took Bella to the funeral home. He stood quietly by her side as she picked out a simple urn. And the look of absolute fury that crossed Bella's face when Edward offered to pay for embalming services and burial—because he was worried that finances were the reason behind Bella's decision to have her father cremated—told Edward to hold his tongue from there on out.

But when the funeral director told Bella that she'd have to identify her father's body, and Bella burst into tears—the first and only time, to Edward's knowledge, that she had really broken down since her father's death—Edward turned protective. Pulling Bella into his arms, he even felt a surge of anger towards the funeral director, though it wasn't his fault.

"I just—I didn't think that I'd have to see him again," Bella explained when she could talk.

Realizing that Bella had been more affected by viewing her father's body than she'd let on, Edward tightened his grip around her frame.

Bella's resolve returned in good time. Edward could almost hear the click as her shield came back up.

She apologized to the director for "losing it," and said that she would be alright. Edward wondered about that.

Unfortunately, Edward had a surgery scheduled during Bella's appointment to identify the body. He tried to get her to wait, then tried to get out of the surgery when she refused (saying that she wanted to get it over with). But Bella told him that she would be just fine, and that she couldn't keep pulling him away from work.

That night, with the body identified and the cremation scheduled, Bella was very quiet. She'd been quiet ever since her father's death. But Edward didn't push her. Psycho-babble aside, he didn't really believe in talking about feelings. Sometimes, it was better to just shove all that shit down until you got through the gauntlet. Later, when you had the time, you could go back and examine everything until you were blue in the face. But sometimes, you just had to keep your eyes on the finish line.

Edward accompanied Bella to the funeral home to pick up the ashes. This time, Bella's mask of indifference remained coolly in place. Her face showed not a flicker of emotion as she accepted the urn and the funeral director apologized once again for her father's passing.

Not until they had returned to the car and Edward had started the long drive to Forks did Bella snap.

"Did you hear him?" Bella hissed.

She was positively seething inside. Angry and hurt all at once.

"The funeral director saying how sorry he was for my father's _passing_. He didn't _pass_. He _died_."

Furious though she obviously was, Edward couldn't help noticing how Bella's voice broke on the word "died."

"I hate all of the euphemisms that people use," she continued. "People don't _pass_. They don't go anywhere. They just disappear. The end."

Edward knew better than to say anything on that subject. He changed the topic.

"Are you sure that you don't want to have some sort of memorial service?" Edward asked, not wanting to rile Bella up any further but wanting to make sure that she was absolutely certain about her decision. "You don't have to do anything formal. You could just call the station and tell them that you're scattering the ashes this afternoon. I could call them for you."

It was the wrong thing to say. Spinning around to glare at Edward, Bella snorted. "Call the station? _Fuck_ them. Where the hell've they been the last ten years? If they gave a shit, they would've been in my father's hospital room. A bunch of goddamned hypocrites. I'm not giving them the chance to pat themselves on the back, thinking they're such good Christians, for showing up when I scatter their beloved Chief's ashes."

Edward didn't argue with her, in part because he thought that she was correct. The good people of Forks, their deputies included, were a bunch of sanctimonious pricks. He didn't think that Bella should have to be subjected to their bullshit.

Bella had put together a playlist for the drive. 70s classic rock. "My dad's music," she said, her voice cracking when she got to "dad."

And as the opening bars of Kansas' _Carry On Wayward Son_ came out of the speakers, Bella turned to look out the window, grateful that Edward wasn't pushing her to talk. She knew that she owed him—she knew that he had been nothing less than a rock, and that she didn't deserve it.

 _I'll make it up to him_ , she thought, as she drifted off to sleep.

Edward was happy to see Bella getting some rest. He knew that she'd been having difficulty sleeping.

So he turned the music down a notch, and settled in for the long drive.

Three hours later, they reached the outskirts of Forks. He thought Bella was still sleeping, and she surprised him with her sudden movement, as she pulled up the hood of her jacket and slid low in her seat.

"What are you doing?" Edward asked.

"I don't want these fuckers to see me. I hate this fucking town."

He was taken aback by the venom in her voice. "We're just passing through. And they're not all assholes. My parents still live here, remember."

Bella hmphed.

Edward didn't argue the issue, but he did reach over to squeeze Bella's hand. Unbeknownst to her, he had already decided that Bella was going to join him and his family in Forks for Thanksgiving. It would be his first Thanksgiving with the family in five years and he had no intention of facing his relatives on his own.

"Do you want to go past your old place?" Edward asked, eyeing the turnoff.

"Absolutely not. I want to go straight to the tree."

Obediently, Edward navigated out of town and took the first turn onto the mountain road.

Unfortunately, Bella's recall wasn't as good as she thought it was. It took her a couple of u-turns to identify the tree that, for all intents and purposes, had ended her father's life.

Edward pulled his car as far onto the shoulder as possible.

"This is it," Bella said, staring at the tree line. "I'm sure of it."

But her certainty seemed to flag a few minutes later, as she came to stand on the leafy verge, the urn held oh so gingerly in her hands.

"You don't have to leave him here if you don't want to," Edward reminded her.

"This is the tree that killed him," she said. The anger was back, beating the grief away. "My father died ten years ago. A puppet was living in his place."

Edward decided to hold his tongue.

She reached out and ran a hand over the tree. "See that, right there?" She pointed at a horizontal scar running along the trunk. "That's from my dad's car. It hardly left a scratch." There was a note of awe in her voice.

"Look at the size of the trunk. It's fucking huge." Bella leaned backwards, trying to see the top. Most of the other trees in the area had already lost their leaves, but she still couldn't make out the top of the tree in the canopy of inky black branches and scraggly foliage.

"It _should_ take a monster like this to kill my dad. It wouldn't be right otherwise."

She smiled weakly. "I took a sledge hammer to the car. Did you know that?"

Edward shook his head.

"They hauled it to one of those places—a wrecking yard or whatever it's called. I found out which one and Alice paid the guy to let me take a sledge hammer to it. They'd already started to strip it. I was so pissed when I realized that they'd already started. I didn't think it was right—passing on those parts like it was nothing. I got the brakes though. Those fucking, useless brakes." Bella dashed a tear away from face. "I never paid Alice back for that. I'm sure it cost her a couple of hundred."

"So that's what she wanted that money for? She hit me and Emmett up. But she never told us what she was going to do with it."

Bella shook her head. "I'm glad that I didn't know that. I was so fucking angry at you then."

Edward's eyes widened. "What for?" He thought about it. "I mean—yeah, we fought all of the time, but this was before—" He didn't want to mention Bella's mother out loud.

"You were being nice to me," Bella explained.

Edward gave her a quizzical look.

"I was so angry about my father—all I wanted to do was fight—and here you were, the person I always fought with, and you were being so fucking nice," Bella elaborated. "I was just so angry that you'd stopped picking on me. I was living in your fucking house and you were just ignoring me. Like I didn't matter. Or worse, like you actually felt sorry for me. Like you thought that I couldn't stand up for myself. I wanted to fight with you so badly, but no matter what I did, you pretended like I wasn't even there."

"I was under strict orders to be nice," Edward explained. "And I would've left you alone regardless. I wasn't that big of an asshole. But if I'd known how much you wanted a fight, I would've been happy to oblige."

Bella smiled grimly and then sighed. "My tattoo—the trident—it's for my dad."

"What?" Edward blinked. He had studied the tattoo on Bella's hip at great length, and had even tried to tease her into telling him what it signified, but he had yet to have any success in finding out what it meant to her.

"It stands for Poseidon. You know—the Greek god of the sea. Not that I think my dad was a god. And Poseidon was kind of a fuck up. My dad wasn't perfect either, but he was still my dad."

Edward didn't respond—because what was there to say?

Unscrewing the lid of the urn, Bella poured the ashes slowly, going around the base of the tree so that they were scattered evenly.

When she was done, she didn't tarry. It was done. It was over.

Whispering a goodbye, she turned back to the car.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI – CI

"I should have quit school," Bella huffed, as Edward reached the turnoff back into town. "I shouldn't have been working so hard these last couple of months. I should have been spending more time with him."

"He wouldn't have wanted you to quit school," Edward said. He had never known Bella's father very well, but he was fairly certain that the Chief wouldn't have wanted his daughter to jeopardize her future.

"Why not? I could have gotten a leave of absence. If I'd known that he was going to die—"

"But you didn't. He was sick, yes. But you had no way of knowing that _this_ was the end."

"It doesn't matter. Even if he was still alive today, that doesn't change the fact that I barely saw him over the last few months. He deserved better than that."

"You were doing the best you could," Edward argued.

Bella scoffed at the cliché. "You don't know that."

"I know that he was suffering," Edward argued. "And he isn't anymore. You should concentrate on that."

She wasn't buying it. "Just because it makes me feel better? Bullshit."

"What could you have possibly done to make it better? Bella, I talked to his doctors."

She hadn't realized that.

Edward sighed. "He was so sick in the end that he wasn't even lucid. He wouldn't have known that you were there."

" _I_ would have known. _I_ would have known that I was there. And he deserved that much. He deserved someone to sit there with him."

"If the situation was reversed, would you want him there? Watching you slip away?"

Bella didn't answer. She wouldn't have wanted that. But she couldn't help feeling like her father would have been there. He would've sat by her side.

No, they didn't gush over each other. But when she needed him after her mother, he was there for her.

"I'm sure that he knew you cared," Edward said.

"I don't need platitudes," Bella replied, but the bite had left her voice.

And Edward decided to let it rest, knowing that he'd made as much progress as he was probably going to make that day.

Noticing the gas station coming up on the right, Edward glanced at the fuel gauge just to check, then cursed. He'd forgotten to fill up in Seattle.

"What are you doing?" Bella asked as he pulled off, a note of panic in her voice.

"We need some gas," Edward explained. "I'll just be a minute."

Bella didn't reply, but she pulled her hood lower over her face and hunkered down in her seat.

Rolling his eyes, Edward climbed out of the car. This town had put Bella through hell. But all that was all the more reason _not_ to hide. Bella had nothing to be ashamed of, or so Edward thought.

On the other hand, she had just scattered her father's ashes. Edward was going to cut her some slack. For now.

Unfortunately, the pump didn't seem to like any of Edward's credit cards. Edward headed inside to pay.

"Fifteen on pump 1," Edward told the cashier, grabbing a local paper. "And the paper."

"Edward Cullen?"

It took him a few seconds to recognize the woman behind the register. "Lauren Mallory?"

 _Fucking one gas station town_ , Edward thought, hoping his annoyance didn't show on his face.

Lauren Mallory was grinning back at him cheekily. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Yeah. Well, you know how things are."

Glancing down at herself, Lauren blushed. "I know it probably seems pretty sad, me working the gas station here."

Edward shrugged. He really just wanted to get his gas and go.

"I'm going to community college though," Lauren explained, perking up.

"That's great," Edward replied. And it _was_ great. Edward wasn't a complete asshole. He just didn't give a fuck. "Good for you."

"I heard you're a doctor." Lauren's eyes had widened.

Edward shrugged again.

"You're probably the most successful person to graduate from Forks High in both of our years combined."

"I don't think that's true," Edward argued.

There was at least one other doctor, as well as a few lawyers. And really, how did a person measure success? Up until a few months ago, Edward was struggling just to make it through the day.

He shook his head. "Anyhow, my girlfriend's waiting for me in the car. We have to get back to Seattle tonight."

It still felt weird using the word "girlfriend." He and Bella had yet to discuss the issue, and she probably didn't notice when he mentioned it on the call with the clinic about her father. But Edward liked to think that she was onboard with the idea.

He was only too pleased to be able to use the title to fend off Lauren Mallory.

"Your girlfriend?" Lauren was craning her head to make out Bella's form through the window.

"Yep. Girlfriend. We're very happy together. Just need to get back to Seattle. Long drive ahead of us."

Looking disappointed, Lauren finally— _finally_ —rung up the gas and the newspaper.

"Well, if you're ever back in town, maybe you—and your girlfriend—would like to go out for drinks," Lauren said, returning Edward's card.

"Sounds great," Edward lied, then fled.

He pumped the gas as quickly as he could and climbed back into the car, taking care not to glance back towards the shop.

"Ready to go?" he asked, starting the engine.

"You were in there a long time," Bella complained.

"Uh yeah, the cashier knew me." Edward pulled onto the main road.

"Who was it?"

"Lauren."

Bella sat up suddenly. "Who?"

"Lauren Mallory."

Bella suddenly started rolling the window down.

"What're you doing?" Edward asked.

"What do you think?" Bella stuck her hand out the window.

Edward couldn't see the gesture Bella was making, but it wasn't hard to guess what it was.

"It's not like she can see," he pointed out. The gas station was steadily receding in the distance.

" _I_ can see."

And even though it was out of place, even though Edward had spent the last three days walking a tightrope—what with Bella's grief and his own revelations about his own feelings—the sight of Bella leaning out the window to try and flick off a woman who wouldn't see (or perhaps understand) was so absurd that Edward couldn't help laughing.

"What are you laughing about?" Bella demanded, rolling the window up again. "I hate that bitch. She made my life a living hell."

"Well you've got your revenge now. She's a pump jockey and you're getting your doctorate."

Bella hissed. "You don't really think that, do you?"

Edward just laughed again.

"Fucking elitist," Bella cursed. She wasn't really angry—not at Edward at least. But she felt slightly better after flicking Lauren fucking Mallory off. The bitch probably didn't even see the gesture, but some of the tension had left Bella's body. She had been trying to hold her anger at bay—her anger at the tree that killed her father, her anger over his death, and her anger at that whole fucking town—and (almost) coming face to face with Lauren fucking Mallory had pushed her over the edge. She felt better now that she'd expressed herself.

"I'm just surprised to see you so angry."

"Forgiveness is for Christians. I live by the Roman code."

"The Roman code?" Edward asked.

"Pretend you don't care until you find a way to fuck 'em over." This was an exaggeration. Bella didn't believe in revenge. She did, however, believe in cutting people off so that they couldn't hurt her again.

But Edward was laughing again. He knew that it was probably fucked up to be taking so much pleasure in the spectacle of Bella's rage, but he was just so happy to see her animated again. It was like she had spent the last three days sleepwalking.

"You seem awfully merry," Bella observed. "What were you talking about in there?"

"My girlfriend."

"Your _girlfriend_?! Who the fuck is your _girlfriend_?!"

Edward outright guffawed. "You."

It took Bella a moment to understand what he had said. "Oh." She settled back down. "Alright then."

But after thinking about it for a minute, Bella realized that another matter needed to be cleared up. "Did you tell her who I was?"

Edward glanced at Bella's profile. "No. I thought that you didn't want anyone to know that you were back in town."

"Hmph."

Edward smiled. "You want me to go back?"

"Of course not. That would be stupid." Bella hmphed again.

"You're not jealous are you?" Edward chided Bella, jokingly.

It was a mistake.

"Why would I be jealous?" Bella asked.

Edward, realizing that he'd gone too far, tried to backtrack. "Oh nothing. Just because, you know."

"I know what?" She didn't sound pissed. Yet.

"You know."

"What do I know?" A hard tone had entered Bella's voice.

Edward shrugged. "About me and Lauren."

"I know that she was obsessed with you."

Edward nodded. "Yeah, that."

A beat passed. "Was there more to it?"

Edward shrugged again. "It was a long time ago."

"You fucked her didn't you?"

There was no point in trying to deny it. "It was high school."

"Turn this fucking car around, right now!" Bella was clearly in a high rage.

"What're you going to do?"

"Claw her fucking eyes out!"

Edward tried to calm Bella down. "It wasn't even that good."

That was an even stupider thing to say.

"It _wasn't that good?_ It. Wasn't. That. _Good_? Is _that_ how you fucking talk about your conquests?"

In Edward's defense, Bella was kind of all over the map with her emotions.

"She wasn't a conquest," Edward prevaricated. "If anything, it was the other way around."

Edward was maybe, sort of, perhaps lying.

Bella wasn't having it. "Bullshit."

"She came onto me."

"I don't doubt that."

Edward sighed. "Tell me what to say and I'll say it."

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?"

"Bella, I'm _trying_ here."

And Bella, whose mouth had been opening to deliver another torrent of angry words, stopped dead in her tracks. He _was_ trying. And she was being a bitch.

The past was the past. He was with her now. He had even told Lauren that she was his girlfriend.

His. Girlfriend.

 _What the fuck?_

Bella swallowed. She didn't know how to be a girlfriend.

But dammit, she wanted it.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"It's ok," Edward said quickly, surprised to find her giving in so easily.

"I'm being such a bitch right now. I'm just so—" She sighed. "With everything the last few days."

"You're not being a bitch," Edward argued, because he didn't like hearing her put herself down. And the truth was, Edward _liked_ arguing with Bella. That part of their relationship hadn't changed.

"We haven't even—" Bella trailed off. It hadn't escaped her notice that she was sleeping in his bed every night but they weren't having sex. She knew that was her fault.

Edward had explained that he had a sex addiction. But as far as Bella could tell, he was clearly well into his recovery, because he wasn't trying to pressure her.

She was the one who'd pushed him into having sex the other night.

Was he holding off because of her? Because of what she was going through?

She understood that his recovery meant that he needed to dial back the amount of sex he was having. But she didn't think that going cold turkey could possibly be healthy.

And she had put him through hell the last few days. She knew that.

There was something she could do to try to make up for it.

Just when Edward thought she was going to spend the rest of the trip brooding, he felt her hand on his thigh.

"What are you doing?" he asked, glancing down quickly.

"What do you think I'm doing?" Bella taunted him, squeezing him through his pants.

"Fuck, Bella. We can't do this now."

"Why not?"

The next thing Edward knew, Bella had undone his zipper and was pulling him out of his pants.

Cursing, Edward pulled the car over to the side of the road. Fortunately, evening had fallen and it was dark enough.

And even though Edward could tell that Bella was probably just using sex to deal with her stress, the fact was that _he_ was stressed too. The last three days had been hard on him, too.

And even though he knew that getting a blow job on the side of a highway probably wasn't the "healthy" thing to do, Edward decided to let himself just enjoy it.

With his head thrown back on the chair and his fingers tangled in Bella's hair, Edward didn't even notice the cop car until he heard that "woop woop" thing that cops do with their sirens to scare the shit out of people.

The cop couldn't possibly have missed the way that Bella's head flew out of Edward's lap.

But Edward had his pants zipped and Bella was back in her seat (with the seatbelt back on) by the time the cop made it to the window.

"License and registration," the cop barked, shining a flashlight around the car, clearly looking for empty bottles and/or paraphernalia related to the use of certain illicit substances.

"Right." Edward leaned across and opened the glove compartment.

The flashlight suddenly sought out Bella's face. She reared back, a hand up to try to block the glare.

"Isabella Swan?" the cop asked, his tone suddenly changing.

"Yeah?"

"You in town for your father?"

"My father?" Someone who didn't know Bella very well wouldn't have noticed the menace implied in her low tone.

Edward knew Bella. He shoved his license and registration towards the cop, trying to distract him.

The cop ignored the papers. "We were all real sorry to hear about your dad passing down at the station. He was like a father to us, you know."

Bella didn't reply.

"If you're going to be in town a while, we'd sure like to have you come down to the station."

"Come down?" Bella asked, in a strange high voice. "To the station?"

"We could have a service at the church. I know the whole town'd like to pay their respects."

"The whole town?" Bella's voice dropped awfully low again.

"Officer, I have my insurance card, too," Edward tried to interrupt. "If you need that."

But the cop seemed to have lost interest, returning Edward's license and registration. "You just get back on the road. Coming around the corner here, it's easy to miss a person sitting on the shoulder. You could get clipped."

"Sure thing officer," Edward said manically. "I think that we're ready to get back on the road."

"Wait a minute." Bella leaned over the center console. "How did you find out about my father—about his _passing_?"

"Obituary of course. It was in today's paper."

And before things could deteriorate further, Edward bid adieu for both of them, and pulled away from the shoulder, driving slowly lest he be pulled over for speeding.

"Bella, I—"

"Shut the fuck up," Bella snapped.

And Edward shut the fuck up.

She waited until they were back at his apartment to start in.

"You did it, didn't you?" She was pacing back and forth.

Edward tried to explain. "I didn't want you to look back on this one day and wish that you'd done something more. This way, it's taken care of."

"It wasn't your fucking decision."

"Your father deserved to be remembered. That town owed him."

"That town shit all over him. All over his daughter."

"Is this about you father," Edward couldn't help asking. "Or about you?"

"Fuck you," Bella rounded on him. "My father _chose_ to be cremated. He knew it would be cheaper and easier for me, yeah, but he _chose_ it. He didn't say anything about a funeral, but I can't imagine he would want to see those fuckers in their faux-mourning, pretending that they actually gave a damn what happened to him."

"Funerals aren't for the dead. They're for the living."

"Well, I'm living. And I didn't want it."

"There are other people who would've wanted to say goodbye." Edward's parents would've wanted to say goodbye, for instance. But he didn't want to bring them into this by name.

"So what? So what? He was _my_ father, not theirs." Bella glared. "' _He was just like a daddy to us good ole boys_ ,'" she simpered. Bella paused in her pacing to punch a sofa cushion. "My father would've kicked their asses if he knew what they did to me."

Edward didn't understand where this hostility was coming from. He'd been told that the deputies had kept an eye out for Bella. They'd run her mother out of town for one. "What did they do to you that was so awful?"

"What did they _do_?" Bella cried. "What did they _do_?" Her face went blank. "Not a damn thing. That's what they did. Not a goddamn thing. They just sat there and watched while the good people of Forks made me the town pariah."

"What were they supposed to do?" Edward asked. He knew how Bella had treated offers of assistance back then. He knew how she'd ignored Esme.

"Our house was vandalized. Did you know that? What did the cops do then?"

Edward didn't know that. But he wasn't going to just give in, either. "Did you call them?"

"Ha!" Bella couldn't believe Edward's stupidity. "Of course not."

"Then what were they supposed to do?"

"Oh, give me a break."

"Two cops pulled me over," he said. "Did you know that? When I came home from college one weekend. They told me not to anywhere near you. I know that I wasn't the only one."

Bella looked at Edward, blinking. But a minute later, she was shaking her head. "Well it wasn't good enough."

"I'm not saying it is. I'm just saying that maybe they cared more about your dad—and you—than you realized."

Bella just stood there, clearly confused about what to do with the information she'd just been given.

After a moment of silence, she held out her hand. "Let me see the paper. Don't think I didn't notice how you picked it up at the gas station."

When Edward handed it over, Bella sat down to read. Edward cautiously sat down next to her, observing her response.

She had to dash away a few tears as her eyes ran over the first few paragraphs, but her face had hardened again by the time that she finished.

"So the fuckers will get to feel better about themselves after all," Bella complained.

Edward had inserted a request that donations be made in Charlie Swan's memory to a local policeman's charity.

"At least it's going to a good cause."

"Fuck them," Bella snapped, carefully refolding the newspaper and putting it down on the coffee table. She decided that she was in fact grateful to Edward for his efforts on her father's behalf. But she wasn't going to give an inch on the damnation awaiting the "good" people of Forks. "I mean, fuck the people who think that giving to charity makes up for being assholes," she clarified.

Edward was going to answer, but Bella pulled him in for a kiss.

She knew that she was probably confusing him, the way that she kept ricocheting back and forth with her emotions. But she didn't have the energy to keep pretending that everything was normal. She'd spent three days on lockdown. And she needed a break.

"I never got to finish making you forget all about that Lauren slut earlier," Bella reminded him when she pulled away.

"Lauren who?"

Bella nodded. "Exactly."

Edward knew that he and Bella still had a ways to go. They hadn't even begun to address his addiction, and she was clearly struggling with her father's death.

But for once, Edward felt like being irrationally optimistic.

 **AN: Thank you for reading.**


	30. Chapter 30

**This chapter is censored for sexual content. The uncensored chapter is on Fictionpad.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

" _Where are those laurels? Bring them, Thestylis—and the love-charms too. Wreathe the cauldron with a crimson fillet of fine wool; that I may cast a fire-spell on the unkind man I love…Can it be that Love and Aphrodite have borne off his roving heart elsewhere?...Now by fire-magic will I bind him…O magic wheel, draw hither to my house the man I love…And even as turns this brazen wheel by Aphrodite's power, so restlessly may he too turn and turn around my doors…Now with these philtres will I strive to enchant him. But if still he should grieve me, at Hell's gate soon, by the Fates, he shall soon knock."_ – Theocritus, _Idyll II, The Sorceress_ , from _The Portable Greek Reader_ edited by W. H. Auden

Chapter 30

To say that Tanya was exceedingly out of sorts would have been putting it mildly. She was fucking fuming.

The plane was late. Planes were always late but her annoyance over this point had been exacerbated by the fact that security had pulled her out of line for a "random" search, and then had proceeded to lose their shit when she asked how much it would cost to speed up the process.

The flight attendants were both slow _and_ clumsy. The food was sub-par. There was turbulence. And now the luggage (the same luggage that security had made such an uproar over) was apparently on its way to Texas. Fucking _Texas_.

Then her car service sent the wrong driver. Tanya had specifically requested Amun. Instead, they sent a creepy little mouth-breather who was obviously watching her in the rearview mirror whenever they stopped at a light.

"Just keep your eyes on the road," she snapped.

Finally, back at her apartment, Tanya went straight for the liquor cabinet.

Only to find that someone had clearly been helping themselves to the contents.

 _That fucking maid._

But this wasn't the real reason that Tanya pissed. No.

Tanya was pissed because Edward fucking Cullen had yet to reply to a single one of Tanya's messages.

Who the fuck did he think he was?

And who did that little Swan twit think that _she_ was? Leaving five voicemails— _five_ —badgering Tanya for her fucking money.

Stupid slut.

All of it—everything Tanya had done—was for Edward. He was the entire point of this exercise. That Swan creature was Tanya's gift to him. It was Tanya's way of showing Edward that he belonged with her—that she knew his desires and could fulfill them.

If it didn't work—

If Edward wasn't hers—

No. That wasn't worth even considering.

Unfortunately, Tanya had been forced to leave town once the "deal was closed," to use a euphemism. This was especially disappointing given the fiasco at Breaking Dawn; their fun was over practically before it even started, thanks to the damn cops.

But that wasn't Tanya's fault. Her plan was flawless.

The old Edward would've enjoyed it. He would've thought the cops just added some spice.

And Tanya wanted the old Edward back. Edward, the deviant and the hedonist. The Edward who could fuck for hours and hours and hours.

He was the only man who could challenge her. The only man who could make her beg for it, and he usually did.

At least until a few months ago.

It all fell apart the weekend that Edward brought Tanya home to meet his parents.

It was just another one of Edward's games. He and Tanya weren't a couple. Not in the romantic sense.

But Tanya was smart enough to figure out why she'd been invited. Edward was sick of pretending with his family. Sick of the subterfuge and the pretense of normalcy.

Tanya understood Edward's motivations. It was hard, oh so very hard sometimes, to have people looking at you like you were better than you were.

The expectations could be like a prison. They held a person back.

Bringing Tanya home was Edward's way of forcing his family to cut ties. He wanted to disgust them so thoroughly that they broke off all contact.

Then he would be free.

Free to be as corrupt as he wanted to be.

Tanya was happy to play along. She packed her suitcase with her role in mind. Neat and proper cardigans and Chanel dresses, harkening back to Jacqueline Kennedy's time in the White House, all in pastel shades, topped off by a fucking pearl necklace. The perfect look to set Edward's parents up for the fall.

Edward introduced Tanya to his parents as his "girlfriend." But that was just part of the joke. She wasn't his girlfriend. She was his whore. His slut.

But Tanya played her role. She practically simpered: She was so very _delighted_ to have been invited into the Cullens' _delightful_ home. It was so very quaint. However did they find such a darling retreat?

And she positively _adored_ Edward. Oh, he was just the _sweetest_ boy. Always doting on her. "Why, I keep telling him that he doesn't need to send me flowers _every_ week, but he insists. And _so_ handsome. It makes my toes curl just looking at him."

Edward's parents just ate it up. They were so obviously desperately happy that their dear boy had returned for a visit, and _with such a nice girl_. They were over the moon.

A mere four hours into the visit, Mama Cullen insisted on pulling out the photo albums.

Wasn't Edward such a darling, scowling at the camera? "Never would smile," Mama Cullen tsked.

Tanya laughed. "That's my James Dean."

And Esme actually laughed, like it was a joke.

The home movies came out next.

Tanya thought that she was going to die from trying to hold in the laughter at the spectacle of the four of them sitting in the den watching those fucking home movies, like the goddamned Cleavers: Mama and papa holding hands on the loveseat, Edward and Tanya—his _girlfriend_ —sitting chastely side-by-side on the couch as they all watched the scenes flicker by.

But as the films played, Tanya found her mirth giving way to another emotion. She wasn't quite sure what it was.

It was strange seeing the young Edward on screen. He was still devastatingly handsome, but he was so very easy to read.

The adult Edward never let his true feelings show, but Tanya could read every emotion as it flickered across the young Edward's face.

Anger. Frustration. Boredom. False compassion. Rage. Anxiety.

Caged animal madness.

There was a girl who'd come on screen every once in a while. Not his sister, because Esme had already point Alice out to Tanya.

"Who's that?" Tanya asked at last, ignoring the way Edward stiffened next to her on the loveseat.

"Oh, that's Belle," Carlisle answered.

The appellation was so inappropriate that Tanya couldn't help guffawing. The girl on the screen was anything but beautiful.

And, by God, the way that the young Edward looked at her—

He clearly loathed her.

And this girl, this _Belle_ , returned the sentiment in spades.

For some reason, Tanya found that oddly reassuring. She didn't know why it mattered. But it did.

Every time Edward and this girl were on screen together, Tanya could feel Edward stiffening next to her on the loveseat. She cast occasional glances in his direction, but the expression on his face never changed. He was utterly inscrutable.

Wanting to understand, Tanya would turn back to the screen.

The two youths never openly bickered, but there was an underlying tension. They would glare at each other whenever they thought that no one was looking.

Finally, unable to take it anymore, Tanya asked. "Who's she? That girl. Belle?"

"Bella," Esme corrected, as Edward stood abruptly. "She was Alice's best friend."

"Does anyone want a drink?" Edward asked, turning to go without waiting for any replies. "I'll just grab another bottle of wine."

"I'll help," Tanya said sweetly, jumping up to follow.

She caught up to Edward in the hallway right outside of the den. She could hear the home movies still playing in the background.

And struck by a burst of inspiration, Tanya reached for Edward. "It's been so long," she said. "What would your parents think if we came back smelling like sex?"

But to Tanya's surprise, Edward pushed him off of her with a warning look.

"Do you think I'm going to fuck you with my family listening?" he snapped.

And she couldn't help feeling a little annoyed. Wasn't this why he'd brought her to Forks? Wasn't he _trying_ to piss his family off?

Had he changed his mind?

 _The fucking coward._

As Tanya and Edward faced off in the hallway, Bella's voice drifted out of the den: "No one cares what you think."

"Obviously you do," the young Edward taunted in reply, "otherwise you wouldn't be here."

Bella offered a saucy comeback, and the two youths began bickering in earnest.

Tanya was about to turn around and go back into the den when Edward suddenly pulled her towards him.

He turned her around so that they were both facing the wall of the den. "Don't make a fucking sound," he hissed, then bit her neck. She could hear the wrapper of a condom tearing open and she wondered if he'd leave it there in the den, for his parents to find.

He fucked her there, with his parents in the next room and the home videos playing in the background.

But if his parents knew what their darling boy was doing, they nevertheless decided to play dumb. When Edward and Tanya returned to the viewing party, a confused looking Esme asked if they were up for a round of Bridge.

 _Bridge._

Later, that night, Tanya decided to get some answers.

She waited until she had worked Edward into a frenzy.

Right when she knew that he was on the verge, Tanya pulled back.

"Don't stop," Edward ordered, pulling on her hair and trying to force her head back down.

"I'm not done," Tanya promised him. "But I was just wondering, did you ever fuck that girl Bella?"

Not waiting for him to reply, she put her mouth around him again.

And he fucking froze.

He was as still as a fucking statue.

His hands had stiffened in her hair and his hips stilled.

 _With her mouth still around him._

"It wasn't like that," he said.

That was when she knew.

The specifics were still a bit vague. Tanya wasn't sure if Edward saw this girl Bella like a kid sister or if he was actually in love with her—as much as Edward Cullen was capable of loving anyone—but he was clearly protective of her.

Corrupt as Edward was, he had a hard limit and it was Bella.

Tanya had hard limits, too. She wasn't a monster, after all. But this was the first time that her limits didn't match up perfectly with Edward's.

It was intolerable.

Especially when Tanya recalled the way Edward had fucked her in that hallway outside the den, with Bella's voice playing in the background.

Tanya was pretty sure that Edward didn't think of this Bella like a sister.

That was the last time Tanya and Edward had sex.

Tanya should have known that something was wrong when Edward put his hand over her mouth and shushed her to keep his parents from hearing.

Edward ignored all of Tanya's teasing the following morning. There was no fingering at the dining room table over breakfast. No rutting like animals in the kitchen right before mommy walked in.

Apparently, they had done more damage than Tanya had realized the previous day, fucking up against the wall of the den—Esme had lost some of her easy, smiling civility and Carlisle struggled to keep the disappointed frowns at bay—but it wasn't quite the degraded devastation of family expectations that Tanya had been hoping for. She and Edward weren't even thrown out.

Oh, things were tense alright. Edward and Carlisle locked themselves away for a while, and Edward was clearly furious about something when they returned. But no one said anything in the open.

Unbeknownst to Tanya, Carlisle had just told Edward about the death of Victoria, Edward's mother. Edward had blown up, telling Carlisle that it didn't matter.

But it did.

And Tanya was none the wiser.

When Edward and Tanya bid his parents farewell, it was a tense, somber affair, and then the two of them were on their way back to Seattle.

Tanya spent the three-hour trip stewing, annoyed over the wasted weekend.

Edward had let her down. He had played the game badly, and she thought she deserved some payback.

"Don't bother coming up," she sneered when he dropped her off at her apartment, shaking her head at him reprovingly as she took the luggage away from him.

If only she had realized that it was the end. That she was never again going to enjoy the comforts of Edward's arms.

Because for all intents and purposes, Edward disappeared after that.

He stopped going to Breaking Dawn and he stopped responding to her phone calls.

At first Tanya assumed that he was intentionally playing hard to get.

And then she realized that he was serious.

 _And she was incensed._

Who the hell did he think he was? Cutting _her_ off?

No one cut Tanya Denali off.

Worst yet, Edward was a coward. He talked a good game, but when faced with the prospect of losing his family, he had chickened out.

Tanya could just picture the scene: Edward all contrite as Carlisle gave him a stern talking to about the way a "gentleman" behaves with his "girlfriend."

 _Ha!_

And now Edward was punishing himself, trying to go "clean," like it was that simple. Like he could just be a "good boy" again and win back all of his parents' love.

He was making a mistake.

Not that family was entirely worthless—Tanya's grandparents had left her oodles and oodles of money—but family wasn't worth trying to change yourself for. If they couldn't love you the way that you were, then fuck them.

Tanya had one surviving relative that she knew of, and the old hag had long since stopped speaking to Tanya.

So Tanya had little patience with Edward's obvious crisis of conscience. He was wasting his time on a set of parents who didn't understand him.

He should be with Tanya. A woman who knew what he was really like and accepted him—accepted him not _in spite_ of his flaws, but _because_ of them.

Which wasn't to say that Tanya was in love with him. She didn't fool herself into thinking that she was capable of that kind of emotion.

But Tanya enjoyed Edward's company. She enjoyed the way that he got her off. And she wanted him back.

There was, too, the issue of the _way_ in which Edward had gone about doing all of this. The infuriating way that Edward had just cut her off. Like he thought he was too good for her now. Like he was somehow better than her and all of the other patrons of Breaking Dawn.

 _Self-righteous prick._

It was with a bitter sense of her grievances that Tanya sat in Breaking Dawn a few weeks later, thinking about Edward and all he had done to her, when she caught a glimpse of a new arrival, an odd little creature who had taken up a position at the bar.

Tanya couldn't help but be drawn in by the scent of new blood. And there was something else—the frisson of juxtaposing such obvious, awkward confusion against a resolute apathy.

The young woman in question was clearly out of place amidst such vulgar debauchery.

And yet she seemed so jaded. Tired.

It didn't make sense.

Tanya nonchalantly took the seat beside her at the bar, nodding a cordial greeting.

The two of them sat there silently for a few minutes, nursing their drinks.

Tanya had just about decided that this new arrival wasn't worth further investigation after all, when her attention was caught by an amusing exchange between a portly fellow in a suit and a young woman who looked less than half his age.

Tanya scoffed out loud, and then, embarrassed, covered her mouth.

But the woman beside her had a knowing smile on her face.

"Doesn't he know?" Tanya snickered softly. "You don't have to romance a woman when you're paying her."

The smile slipped from her companion's face, but a beat later, the woman shrugged. "Bet he goes to church tomorrow and yells at his wife for checking out the new minister."

Tanya looked the creature over. Perhaps she'd misjudged her. "It's the sanctimonious people," Tanya said, "who have the most perverted minds."

"You have no idea," her companion replied.

But Tanya did. "You speak from experience?" she asked.

"I'm from Forks. Population: All hypocrites."

A strange feeling came over Tanya then. _Could it be?_

"My name's Tanya Denali," she introduced herself.

The woman beside her looked uncertain, then replied. "Swan. Isabella Swan."

And that was how it all started.

It was Tanya's best game yet.

It was also her most difficult.

The two of them were so intractable, so set in their ways. Bella fighting her every step of the way, refusing Tanya's instructions, resisting her advice. And Edward—poor, confused Edward—so clearly drawn to Bella, an almost animalistic jealousy coming into his eyes the night that he "accidentally" discovered Bella at Breaking Dawn with that friend of hers, Angela. He had texted Tanya, mentioning a plan to stop by Breaking Dawn that night, and Tanya had warned Bella, told her to be there and ready for when Edward showed.

That was a mistake on Tanya's part. She saw that now. That text from Edward was a cry for help. Instead of dangling Bella under his nose, Tanya should have taken the reins. She should've reminded Edward of everything he was missing.

But she continued with the plan. She proposed a contest with Edward: They would see if he could succeed in seducing this Swan creature. And if he could, well—

Well, of course he would succeed. That was Tanya's plan. And when Edward was boasting of his victory, Tanya would reveal the truth: That it was all a game. That Isabella Swan was Tanya's gift to him.

Edward would realize that he belonged with Tanya, because she was the only one who understood the thoroughness of his corruption.

Unfortunately, none of it was going the way that Tanya had planned. Edward was interested in the Swan creature alright—Tanya had never seen him look at any woman that way—but there were supposed to be more than two players in this game. Edward and his new plaything were shutting Tanya out. Edward still wasn't replying to Tanya's messages and that Swan bitch had started ignoring her too.

Tanya had just about given up hope—perhaps the silence meant that Edward wasn't interested in Swan after all—when Swan called her one night, sobbing about some gallery, and some boys in an alley, saying that it was all over, because Edward had turned her down.

Tanya was simultaneously enraged and ecstatic.

Enraged, because Edward and Swan had been carrying on without her.

Ecstatic, because Tanya was finally going to get what she wanted: Edward.

She was going to have to go through that Swan woman to get him, but Tanya _was_ going to get him.

The frantic tone of Swan's voice proved that matters were moving quickly.

Tanya was scheduled to fly to Paris the next day, but the iron was hot. She couldn't take the risk of putting this off.

So, instead of trying to reason with Swan over the phone, Tanya made the long trek out to the woman's cockroach infested apartment.

What followed then was nothing short of an elaborate stage play, with Tanya as the director.

It was a fucking masterpiece. And Tanya carried it off through sheer force of will.

It took every ounce of her energy to get Swan to Breaking Dawn. A bartender was happy to take a picture for Tanya, and Swan was too distraught to lodge a protest as Tanya proceeded to kiss her.

It was the matter of a few clicks to send the photo to Edward.

And he came stumbling through the door sooner than Tanya would have expected.

Frustrated though she was at the reluctance of her actors, Tanya couldn't help but enjoy the way that the show came together. This new, shy Edward wasn't the man she knew. But she had faith in her play, and he eventually followed her directions.

The raid was unfortunate, but Tanya couldn't deny feeling a new kind of excitement at the fear of arrest. Knocking away the cobwebs as she hurried through a back corridor of Breaking Dawn, Tanya had a brief vision of the celebration she would enjoy with Edward, later back at her apartment.

The Swan creature could join them, if she wanted to.

Tanya, benevolent as she was, decided that she'd throw in an extra few thousand if the woman consented to the two of them fucking her at the same time.

So when that wretched creature refused to climb into that taxi next to Tanya, _and Edward ran after her_ , Tanya was left nothing less than seething.

Boarding her plane a few hours later, Tanya cursed as she checked her phone. Still no message from Edward.

She vowed to herself that she would resolve the matter as soon as she returned.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

 _No!_

It couldn't be true.

Tanya watched with horrified eyes as that _creature_ , that _slut,_ Isabella _fucking_ Swan, laughed over her shoulder at Edward—at _Tanya's Edward_ —and he grinned right back at her.

Tanya stood on the sidewalk across from Edward's apartment, glaring at the couple as they strolled out of the entrance.

It was eight o'clock in the morning.

 _Eight o'clock in the_ fucking _morning._

And the couple looked as if they'd spent the entire night nestled in each other's arms.

Tanya shook her head. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. She practically had to _force_ the two of them to have sex even once—just _once_ —and it wasn't even really fucking. The raid had seen to that.

So what the fuck were they still doing together?

It wasn't possible.

Edward couldn't _possibly_ have lowered himself enough to take up with that creature.

And _her!_ How dare she lay her hands on Edward?

Isabella Swan was _Tanya's_ gift to Edward. Isabella Swan _worked_ for Tanya.

Who was this Swan bitch to be acting so cavalierly? Like she _belonged_ with him?

Who was _she_ to enjoy the delights that Edward had denied to Tanya for so long?

As Tanya watched the two of them continue down the street, she knew what she had to do.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Edward's smile fell when his eyes fell on the peroxide blonde bob.

"You need to leave," he told her quietly. "Right now." Glancing at Stanley, he said. "Will you call security, please."

Tanya laughed. "Security?! Are you mad?"

"Call them right now please."

When Edward heard that there was a woman waiting for him at the nurses' station, he assumed that it was Bella. The message was vague, but who else could it have been? And Edward wasn't entirely surprised that Bella would drop by. She had been so out of sorts lately, with her father's death, but she was getting better, day by day.

And Edward knew that she was worried about _him,_ about _Edward_. She kept asking about his condition, about the treatment and how she could help.

Bella was especially worried about their plans for the evening. Worried, because Edward was worried.

His family was coming for dinner.

And Edward was anxious about seeing them—abnormally anxious, in fact—so the prospect of Bella coming by to see him, made him happier than it probably should have.

He was grinning on his way down the hall.

Then he saw Tanya.

Under no circumstances was Edward interested in seeing Tanya. That part of his life was over.

But Tanya didn't look very impressed by his threat to call security.

Rolling her eyes, she held up her phone and pressed a button.

Edward was instantly on his guard. If she had taped him, he was going to—

"Yeah I know him. But his name's Masen, not Cullen."

Edward was shocked to hear Bella's voice pouring out of the device.

 _What the fuck did Tanya think she was doing?_

"Forget security," Edward told Stanley, grabbing Tanya's arm and dragging her none too gently down the hall.

Entering the first empty room, he slammed the door shut and rounded on Tanya.

"Did you tape us?" He growled. "That night at Breaking Dawn, did you tape the three of us together?"

"Is that what you're afraid of?" Tanya asked, letting out a fresh peal of laughter.

Edward glared at her. "Give me your phone, now, and any other copies that you have."

"Darling, I didn't tape that night," Tanya shook her head. "And a good thing I didn't. It would ruin your reputation if everyone knew how difficult it was to coax and wheedle you into fucking that woman. The great Edward Cullen. A fucking joke."

"Then how do you have Bella's voice on your phone?"

Tanya cocked an eyebrow. "Didn't she tell you? We're great friends."

Edward snorted. "Bullshit."

"But it's true. We've spent many an hour reminiscing over the wonderful Edward Cullen. Only she likes to call you Masen. And she doesn't think you're so wonderful."

Edward blinked. "I don't believe you."

"She knew all about your scars. She said they used to embarrass you so much. She used to think it was funny."

Edward stared at Tanya. What she was saying didn't make any sense. This wasn't the Bella he knew.

"She told me how she invited all of the cool girls to the beach one morning," Tanya continued. "She set you up. Because she knew how much it would shame you to have all of the girls see your scars."

"You're lying," Edward interrupted, though he couldn't imagine how Tanya could possibly know about that day at the beach. Or about his name— _Masen._

Not unless Bella told her.

Tanya tsked. " _I_ defended you. I said that the Edward I knew wasn't embarrassed by his scars. I said that you didn't give a fuck what anyone thought of you."

Edward opened his mouth to argue—there had to be some sort of explanation—but Tanya was talking again.

"And then I realized that I knew who she was. I had seen her before. The girl in your home movies. _Bel-la_." Tanya laughed again. "The ugly girl with the pretty name."

Edward felt a surge of heat at the insult. How dare Tanya talk that way about Bella?

But the next words out of Tanya's mouth stopped him cold:

"And then I realized how much she _hates_ you." Tanya clicked her tongue. "After all of these years. She carried it around inside of her, this hatred for you. I've never seen anything like it."

"She was confused," Edward said at last. "She thought that I did something that I didn't."

Tanya laughed again. "Oh _that_. I know all about _that_ , how she thought that you fucked her mother. That you _paid_ her mother to have sex."

"But I didn't."

"You _would_ have."

"No," Edward shook his head. "That's not true. I wouldn't have."

"It's who you _are,_ Edward. Don't pretend—"

"You don't know me," Edward stepped back.

Tanya didn't _really_ know him.

 _Hell,_ he barely knew himself.

"So the last ten years have been what? A joke?" Tanya looked unconvinced.

"I was confused," Edward said.

" _Fuck_ you! You don't get to do this."

"I'm sorry, I—"

"You're damn right you're sorry. You're fucking pathetic. I know about you and _Bella_. About your little romance. What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"I love her." The words just tumbled out of his mouth.

"You _love_ her?!" Tanya gaped at him, as though utterly shocked by what she saw.

"People like us don't fall in love," she said at last.

"Well, I've changed." Now that he'd said the words aloud, he might as well own up to them. He still hadn't confessed his feelings to Bella, but he would eventually.

"You've _changed_? Are you fucking stupid?"

"I know how this probably sounds—"

"She's _using_ you," Tanya sneered.

Edward started to object, but Tanya cut him off again.

"She _hates_ you, you know that right?"

"That was in the past."

Tanya's laugh then was cruel and vicious. "You don't just get over hatred like that. I've never seen anything like it before." She exhaled. "It's almost like passion, like _sex_ , the way she fucking _loathes_ you. It wasn't hard at all to talk into her my plan."

"I'm not doing this with you."

"Don't you want to hear about it?"

"So Bella told you about us that night at Breaking Dawn. The night of the raid. She was upset. I don't care."

"Who do you think _brought_ her to Breaking Dawn that night?"

Edward studied Tanya's face. She was so good at lying. It was hard to tell the truth.

"She _called_ me," Tanya explained. "She was crying. She said that you didn't want her. And I said that she had to be wrong. I'd seen the way you looked at her. That was my plan after all. I set her up for you."

"What are you talking about?"

"She was my _gift_. To _you._ "

Edward was done with this conversation. Tanya wasn't making any fucking sense. He started to leave.

"I just have to record the two of us together?" Bella's voice came from Tanya's phone again. "That's it, right?"

"That's it," Tanya's voice answered.

"I don't want my face to be in the recording," Bella complained.

"You're a smart girl," Tanya's voice replied. "I'm sure you can figure out an angle that'll keep your face out of it."

"And that's it?" Bella continued. "One recording and I'm done? You'll give me my money?"

"Once and you're done," Tanya confirmed.

There was a sudden roaring in Edward's ears. He swallowed, fighting a swell of nausea.

"Remember our contest?" Tanya asked him. "You were supposed to seduce her. Except that _you_ were the one who was really being seduced. And I was the one doing the seducing."

"No," Edward tried to argue.

"You lost. And I won."

"No."

"I won because I'm the only one who really knows you. Knows what you want. Can keep you happy."

"Bella wouldn't do that to me."

Tanya pouted. "Oh, it's so sweet. The chivalrous knight defending his innocent lady love."

"I'm not going to let you hurt her—"

"Hurt _her_?" Tanya pressed a hand to her lips, trying to contain her mirth. "You're nothing but a paycheck to her."

"That's not true."

Tanya reached for Edward, trying to comfort him. "You didn't think that she'd actually fallen in love with you, did you?"

Edward reared back. "She—" He couldn't finish. Because he really had no idea how Bella felt about him, did he?

She _said_ she wanted to be with him.

But then why didn't she say anything about Tanya?

Bella kept asking him questions about his condition.

His fucked up, sick condition. The condition that he'd been so afraid to tell anyone about, afraid that they would use it against him.

The condition that he never mentioned to Tanya.

Bella knew about it, of course, but she would never—

 _She used to hate you. So much_.

But that was in the past.

 _She couldn't_.

Tanya was gazing at Edward with a sad expression. "I guess it's a good thing that I taped my conversations with your little _Bel-la_. She's been lying to you all along, hasn't she?"

"No, she—"

"Darling, Bella's just like her mother, isn't she?"

"What?" Edward couldn't make sense of what Tanya was saying.

"That night, at Breaking Dawn. She knew that you were innocent. Whatever she thought you'd done to her, you were innocent. She told me all about it. And yet she still hated you enough to go through with my plan. She still let you fuck her."

Another wave of nausea washed over Edward.

Tanya sighed. "It's ironic, really. All this time, Bella thought that you'd had sex with her mother, a prostitute, when really, Bella was the only one who prostituted herself to you."

And with that, Edward felt something inside of him break.

He had despised himself for so many years, had gone out of his way to throw himself headlong into the corruption that he thought he deserved to suffer, only to discover that he was innocent of the crime that had inspired his fall. He wasn't some john.

And how did he celebrate?

By becoming the very thing he had loathed. By turning Bella into a whore.

A part of Edward was still in denial.

 _No, it's not true_.

Bella wouldn't do this to him.

 _He_ wouldn't do this to _her_. To himself.

 _You're a pig._ His mother's voice was clear as a bell in his head. _No woman will ever want to touch you._

Edward could feel his skin burning where his mother had stubbed out one of her cigarettes, the pain fresh, like it was happening all over again.

 _How'd you get your scars?_ he heard Lauren asking. _It's ok, they're not that bad once you get used to looking at them._

He recalled the way Bella's mother had leered at him. The feeling of revulsion at the notion that the woman was interested in him _that_ way.

And his horror when he realized—when he _thought—_ that he'd had sex with the woman. That he'd _paid_ her for sex.

 _You're a monster,_ his mother said. _A pig-boy. And I've seen the way you look at me._

It wasn't true. His mother was lying. He'd _never_ looked at her that way. He _hated_ her.

The same way that he hated Bella's mother.

So the belief that he'd actually gone there with Renee—that he'd stooped so low—that mistaken belief was the reason for his destruction.

Yes, _destruction_. Because he had been trying to destroy himself.

All of those women. All of those times. He was trying to lose himself.

But he was innocent. _I'm innocent_. He had never touched Bella's mother.

It didn't matter, though. It was like he was right back there again, all of those years ago, with that sick self-loathing creeping over his skin.

He wanted to vomit.

He wanted to claw his skin off—those _fucking_ scars that Bella never mentioned. Women always asked him about his scars, but Bella had never mentioned them so much as once.

She was different.

He _thought_ that she was different.

 _How could she do this to me?_

She cared. She was trying to help him with his condition.

 _She's_ encouraging _your condition. She_ wants _you to be sick. She's_ using _you._

Edward shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, trying to escape his memories.

But Tanya wasn't done with him. Not yet.

Because Bella's voice was coming out of Tanya's phone again: "Uh, so this is Bella. And I had sex with him. As you know. Um, because you were there." The Bella in the recording cleared her throat. "And I guess you had to leave for business, but I really need the money as soon as possible. So if you could get that to me, I would appreciate it."

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI – CI

"I know that Edward's so happy that you're here," Bella said, feeling awkward and unsure as she directed Esme and Carlisle to hang up their coats in the closet.

She was trying not to let on just how nervous she was. But she was going out of her mind with anxiety.

This was the first time that Bella was meeting the Cullens _as Edward's girlfriend_.

It was weird.

And Alice wasn't making things any easier. It was Bella's first time seeing Alice since the whole business at Breaking Dawn, and Bella still didn't know how to handle the fact that Alice knew about that place, knew that Bella and Edward were patrons.

Bella was still dodging Alice's calls.

"I've been really busy," Bella had said to Alice when letting her into Edward's apartment.

"Uh huh," Alice had smirked.

Bella considered telling Alice about her father. Bella knew that she could get out of this by drumming up a little sympathy.

But something made Bella hold her tongue. She didn't want to talk about her father. She was trying to put herself back together now that he was gone, and she couldn't do that if she had to keep telling everyone about him.

It wasn't any of their business anyhow. It was enough that Edward knew.

He was the only one who deserved to know.

So Bella had put up with Alice's mild chiding, until Esme and Carlisle arrived. And now that they were here, Bella led them into the living room, ignoring the way that Alice was smirking at her over Jasper's shoulder.

Unfortunately, Emmett and Rosalie, who had arrived just before Esme and Carlisle, clearly expected an update on the new developments.

"So you have a key now?" Rosalie asked.

Bella could feel herself blushing. "Edward just asked me to help set up for the dinner party."

"He just loaned you the key then?" Alice tried to clarify.

"I've had it for a while," Bella admitted, wondering again where the hell Edward was. He was supposed to be there already. They were supposed to tell his family about the two of them dating, but it was obvious that his family already caught on to that fact.

"Edward should be arriving any minute now," Bella said, hoping to change the subject. "I guess that he just got hung up at work."

"I hope this means that you'll be joining us for Thanksgiving," Esme said, gazing at Bella hopefully.

"Thanksgiving?" Bella prevaricated.

Edward had extended an invitation, but Bella was wary of accepting.

She didn't want to go anywhere near Forks.

And, the truth be told, she was afraid of being back in his parent's house. Of the memories—the last time she was in their house, her father had just had his accident, and her mother was picking her up.

Bella was also terrified of the prospect of finding herself stuck in a conversation with Edward's parents.

A conversation like the one she was currently having.

Sitting there, in Edward's living room, Bella felt woefully uncomfortable.

She didn't know how to act in front of Esme and Carlisle.

 _How do you treat the parents of the man you're sleeping with when they're also your surrogate parents who turned their backs on you when you needed them the most?_

Bella didn't know what to do.

She took some comfort in the knowledge that Edward was at least as anxious about facing them as she.

"It's my first Thanksgiving with them in years," he had said.

"But you live so close," Bella had replied.

"I've been busy."

Bella wasn't buying it.

She also wasn't buying his argument as to why _she_ was so desperately needed: "Don't make me go alone," he'd begged. "I can't take them for that long." He argued that Bella would help him get through it, just like she had supposedly helped him get through all of Alice's happy hours.

Bella was going to accept the invitation. _Of course she was going to accept it._

But she was also terrified. So for now, she was pretending to hold out, taking refuge in the warm harbor of denial.

Fortunately, the sound of the front door saved Bella from having to answer Esme's question.

She stood up hastily to greet Edward, who was strolling into the living room.

"Honey, I'm home," Edward grinned, his words taking Bella aback—

This wasn't like him.

But she was so happy to see him.

"Edward," Bella replied.

And not pausing to spare his other guests a welcome, Edward pulled Bella in for a hard kiss, one hand dropping to cup her ass.

"Edward?!" Bella gasped, pushing him away.

"Just missed you," Edward pouted, wrapping an arm around her waist so that she couldn't get away.

Bella told herself that it was just a joke.

A bad joke.

And that had to be all that it was, because Edward was smiling at the confused expressions on his guests' faces.

"I'm sure Bella's been taking care of you," he said. "She's good at that."

Bella opened her mouth. _Was he insinuating?_

Edward adopted a more modest tone then. "I can't tell you how pleased I am to have you all grace my humble home with your presence."

Carlisle started to stand but Edward held out a hand. "Just a minute dad. I can't wait to catch up with all of you. But first, I just need a word with Bella here."

Utterly baffled and embarrassed, Bella was only too happy to get a reprieve. She let Edward pull her behind into the bathroom.

"I'm sorry baby," he said, closing the door then pushing her up against it. "I'm just so nervous to have them here. I was kind of hoping that they wouldn't show."

Edward kissed her, more gently than before.

"I just need a little stress relief," he said softly, pulling back. "I know that this is a problem for me and that I'm supposed to be working on it. But right now I just need you. Then I'll go out there and apologize. We'll forget everything that just happened. Will you help me, baby? Please?"

Bella didn't understand what was going on. She didn't recognize the Edward in front of her. And she was mortified by the way he'd greeted her in front of everyone.

But she knew that he was telling the truth about his anxiety. It had taken Edward a full week to work up the nerve to invite everyone for the dinner party.

And then he'd freaked out all over again because he had expected everyone to turn him down. He didn't expect them to say 'yes.'

Then, he had suffered a minor panic attack every single day since. Worrying about what he should serve. About whether or not he had to come up with "activities." About whether his siblings were going to fight about something.

Edward was especially anxious about his parents. He was planning to tell them about his condition. Emmett and Alice already knew, but Edward was going to tell Esme and Carlisle.

And Bella knew that he was nervous.

So even though she knew that it wasn't good for him, Bella was willing to help him out. If Edward needed sex to cope, then she'd go along with it, just this one time.

They had made a lot of progress in that department, after all. They weren't having as much sex as they used to.

They could make an exception. And his family wouldn't know. His family would just assume that there was an argument—which would make a hell of a lot of sense.

"What do you need?" Bella asked.

"On your knees."

Bella blinked. But she only hesitated for a few seconds.

And what happened then was nothing like any of her previous times with Edward.

She didn't know the man in that bathroom with her.

Afterwards, she was kneeling there, staring up at him in horror and disgust, struggling to hold onto the conviction that there had to be some sort of explanation—

With Edward smiling down at her.

It was a cruel smile. The same cruel smile that the old Edward had always worn.

"You'll go out there and they'll know what you were doing." He laughed. "Not that they don't know already. Like mother, like daughter."

Bella couldn't believe what she was hearing.

Edward cocked his head. "You _are_ a whore aren't you? You're _my_ whore."

A sob escaped Bella's lips as she staggered to her feet.

"What's wrong?" Edward asked. "Mommy probably had more practice. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll improve."

She snatched a towel off of the rack to wipe her face clean.

"Don't cry honey. I'm sure you'll get more work when Tanya distributes all of the photos you sent me. Not to mention the recording she made of the two of us that night at Breaking Dawn. You can kiss your career goodbye. Maybe you can get a naughty teacher act going."

Bella fumbled for the doorknob, and Edward reached around her to pull it open. She was so desperate to get away from him, away from the things he was saying, from what he'd just done, that she stumbled on her way back into the living room.

"Tell Alice," Edward taunted Bella as she staggered away from him, the towel still clutched in her hands. "Tell her how you used her just to get to me. Tell her how you were only interested in her as a way to get to me."

"Stop it!" Bella hissed around her tears. Because it wasn't true. It wasn't.

 _It was true._

"Tell my parents how you're just like your mother," Edward snapped. "You used them all of those years ago, and you stabbed them in the back."

"I didn't—" Bella started, her tears making it hard to see, to speak.

"You're just like your mother, except she had a little more experience, didn't she?" Edward hummed. "It showed. You're a lousy lay."

"Edward!" Esme gasped.

"I'm sorry," Bella sobbed, apologizing for everything and to everyone at once.

To Edward—how did he find out? And _how could he do this to her?_

To Alice—Bella never meant—

To Esme and Carlisle and the rest of Edward's family, for everything that she'd put them through, for putting them through this scene right now.

"I'm so sorry," she sobbed, turning to go.

"You're sorry you got caught, you mean," Edward said.

Struggling to see through her tears, Bella grabbed her purse and coat.

"I'm sorry," she said again.

"I'm sorry that I ever laid a finger on you," Edward said snidely.

And Bella fled.

 **AN:**

 **Yes, Bella should have told him before this.**

 **Yes, this is contrived BS.**

 **Yes, they should both cut each other off and never having anything to do with one another again. But they should have done that like three times already in this story, and there're six more chapters to go.**

 **No, I'm done twisting the knife. If you're angry and want these characters to suffer for their actions, don't worry. They will.**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	31. Chapter 31

**Song inspiration: P. J. Harvey's "Angelene."**

 **The version on Fictionpad is eight words longer (with a reference to what happened in that bathroom).**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

' _He would have been a citizen long before but for the shame of his mother, who is a whore._ ' Plutarch on Pericles' son, trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert

Chapter 31

She dreamt that she was running around the city, trying to get all of these errands done. She was checking items off of lists—

But it didn't seem like she was making any headway. The list was still just so long. The panic and anxiety was getting worse by the second.

Then she was in a car. She still had all of these things to do, but she was being careful—she was only driving about twenty-five miles per hour—she wasn't speeding, because it was raining and she was afraid of having an accident.

She just was so fucking careful. But it didn't matter. It was like fucking fate or something—

She was halfway across the bridge when it happened. The car started spinning.

She tried to correct, but it was no good. It was too late.

She could see other cars crashing around her—

A semi started tipping over—

All because of her. All because she couldn't keep control.

It was so fucking clichéd.

It was such a banally _Freudian_ dream.

Bella hated herself for being so simple.

And yet she felt the aftereffects of the dream as soon as she awoke, the images from her dream—all of those cars, wrecking—the violence and chaos still fresh.

Bella felt out of sorts and just—

Just fucking miserable.

But it least she wasn't dreaming about Edward anymore.

It had been nearly two weeks since she'd left his apartment in disgrace.

She had walked out of his apartment building with her hair pulled down to hid her face. Trying not to gag from the tears choking her throat, Bella had walked to the nearest Starbucks so that she could wash her face in the bathroom.

Breathing carefully, she willed herself not to break down into sobs. She _wouldn't_ cry. She _wouldn't_.

And two weeks later, she still hadn't cried.

Oh, she dashed a tear away here and there.

But she at no time succumbed to the full-blown sobs that wanted to overwhelm her.

She wasn't a crier. She had succumbed to tears over her father's death on but one occasion, and then only because she wasn't prepared to hear that she would have to view her father's body a second time.

In ancient Greece, people hired mourners for their funerals. Women were paid to wail and tear at their hair.

But excessive grief was inappropriate for a person in control of her full faculties. It was a mark of inferior character.

It might not make much sense to apply ancient ethics to a modern setting, but it was Bella's way. And while tears might have provided temporary relief from stress, any service they would have performed was outweighed by the costs. They were far too debilitating.

So Bella wouldn't cry.

Alice called. Bella ignored every one of those calls.

She listened to the voicemails, though, telling herself that it would be her penance, because she expected Alice's anger. Bella expected Alice's pain.

And part of her wanted to hear it, wanted to hear that Alice was suffering the way that she had once suffered, back in high school, when Alice had turned her back on Bella.

But things weren't going to be that easy. Because Alice wasn't angry.

Bella found herself dashing more tears from her eyes as Alice pled with her to pick up the phone.

Alice was just so sure that Edward was wrong. Just so sure that Bella wouldn't—couldn't—have done the things he was accusing her of.

Bella wouldn't become her mother.

 _A whore_.

Alice's pleading was so much worse than the anger that Bella had expected.

Made it so much harder.

 _What did you expect?_ Bella asked herself.

Bella had gone out of her way to strike up a friendship with Alice so that she could get at Edward. She had _used_ Alice.

It was inevitable that Alice learn the truth when all of this unraveled—and it was certainly going to unravel at some point.

Did Bella really expect to go on being friends with Alice?

Bella had never really considered the possibility that she might actually grow to value Alice's friendship.

And yes, Bella had been dodging Alice ever since the police had talked to Alice about Breaking Dawn—

Bella was too ashamed to talk to Alice after that.

But somehow, Bella had been imagining that it would all work out.

Subconsciously, she'd decided that none of it mattered. That everything would be fine.

Consciously, Bella had been telling herself that she didn't really care what Alice thought about anything. She didn't really care if Alice was her friend.

But now—

Now, Bella felt the loss of Alice.

Felt it keenly.

As hard as it was to endure Alice's calls, the ones from Esme were so much worse.

It tore Bella's heart out to listen to Esme plead with her. Esme, the woman who ought to have been her mother, the woman who was now stumbling over her words as she struggled with just what to say.

"I wanted to check on you," Esme said. "I've missed you so much."

And hearing that, Bella couldn't help but wonder—

For a split-second Bella was angry. Blindingly, furiously angry.

Where was Esme when Bella really needed her? After Port Angeles?

But then Bella remembered: Esme _had_ tried. Not hard enough, maybe, but Esme had tried, and Bella had shut her down.

And now, all of these years later, here was Esme, again, trying to reach out.

Bella found herself considering the possibility—

Maybe Bella could explain things to Esme. Esme would understand. Esme would help her.

But then it happened.

Esme's voice wavered. "Even if what he said was true—"

Bella couldn't help gagging as she listened—

"I want you to know that I'm here for you dear."

But how could that possibly be true? How could Esme say that? How could Esme bear the thought of seeing Bella again?

How could Esme bear to share company with a whore?

Because that was what Bella was.

For all of Bella's grandstanding, for all of her bullshit about a job being a job being a job, and for all of her arrogant moralizing on the shackles of antiquated morals, Bella couldn't escape the sense of shame.

It was stupid. So very fucking fucking fucking stupid.

Because Bella completely and wholeheartedly believed in the decriminalization of prostitution. She believed in it with every ounce of her being.

But she felt like a whore. She felt like nothing.

She felt like she wasn't worth a goddamned thing.

She remembered that look in the eyes of her mother's johns. Like her mother was a piece of trash. Like her mother wasn't worth the skin in which she was encased.

And every ounce of Bella's being said that was bullshit. That it wasn't fair and it wasn't right.

But, God help her, Bella couldn't help feeling like maybe they were right. Because Bella felt like garbage.

Bella tried to tell herself that it was just brainwashing. That it was years and years of hearing how prostitution was the lowliest profession.

So maybe the way she felt was the result of brainwashing.

But it was more than that—

Edward had treated her like she was garbage. Like she _disgusted_ him.

And the memory of that—of the words he'd said, of _what he had done to her_ —filled her with such shame.

And such rage.

 _How dare he?_

So what if Bella had agreed to prostitute herself?

Who was Edward to think less of her for that?

A job was a job was a job.

And wasn't prostitution just another aspect of the service industry?

Edward used his hands to heal people every day—how was that any different from Bella using her body to make him feel better?

 _That fucking hypocrite!_

 _That so-called creature of arch-corruption, daring to pass judgment on her!_

And fuck him for implying that he didn't enjoy it.

She had let him use her body, and he had enjoyed it. She knew that he had.

But, as angry as she was, Bella couldn't escape the feeling that she deserved it. Deserved everything that he had done to her and more.

She should have told him. Not at first maybe—she still stood by her decision there. She was right to hold her tongue, to wait and see if Edward was playing some game.

If she was wrong about that—

Well, so what? He had made mistakes, too.

And she was _going_ to tell him the truth. But then her father died and she got distracted. She was human, after all.

Edward _knew_ how hard her father's death was for her. He _knew_.

And he still—

He ought to have asked her. He ought to have given her a chance.

Oh, Bella knew how he found out, alright. Tanya had clearly told him the truth.

And instead of coming back to Bella, to ask for her version of things, Edward had turned on her.

It just showed that Bella was right not to trust him. Right not to tell him the truth.

Because look at what he had done to her—

 _Her father just died, goddammit!_

And after losing her father, Bella forgot all about that bitch Tanya and her useless money—

 _Useless_ , because what good was the money to Bella now that her father was dead? She only wanted the money to pay for his treatment.

Surely Edward could figure that out.

And if not, he should have given her a fucking chance.

But no.

He was probably back with Tanya. Back in her bed.

Yet more proof that Bella was right about him.

Because the thought of him with Tanya—

Bella wanted to vomit.

And yes, yes, it was all Tanya's idea. Bella wouldn't have been so eager to throw herself into Edward's arms without the plan. She only took up with the Cullens again because of the plan. Without it, she would have avoided them like the plague. Would've told them to drop dead the minute they popped up on her radar.

But so what? Why should any of that matter? Bella's loved them, why did it—

 _Was it love?_

A part of Bella had probably never stopped loving Alice and Esme. As much Bella hated them after what had happened all of those years, she also loved them.

She didn't know how she felt about Edward, but she didn't hate him anymore.

She cared for him, and she had hurt him.

He was right to think it was all a sham. She had used him.

She deserved what he did to her.

 _But what he did to her—_

In that bathroom.

What he said to her.

No one deserved that.

Of all people, Edward— _hedonist_ that he was, _hedonist_ that he _claimed_ to be—he had no right to condemn her like that.

If she had been using him, well, he had been using her, too. He had been trying to satisfy some twisted fetish—

He had _enjoyed_ it.

 _But he was an addict._

He couldn't help himself. Wasn't that how it worked?

Or rather, he _could_ help himself, but it was a dependency, just like drinking. It was a chemical dependency.

Who was Bella to judge him? He had a problem. And he admitted it. He was trying to get better.

Bella had only made it worse. She'd pushed him into playing those games with her.

Of course, that was before she knew about his problem.

And afterwards—

 _She kept pushing him into having sex even after she knew the truth._

Bella was just so upset over her father's death. She was just so hurt. She wanted the pain to go away, if only for a few minutes.

And Edward went along with it, every time. Gave into her demands. Even though it meant setting himself back with his recovery.

He gave in because he _wanted_ to. He _enjoyed_ it.

Or maybe he just genuinely cared about her.

But then Bella would remember what happened in that bathroom. The things he said.

If Edward really cared about Bella, he would have given her a chance to explain. He wouldn't have turned on her so quickly. He wouldn't have taken so much delight in humiliating her so completely.

 _How could he?_

Bella thought back over all of her crimes against Edward. All of things she'd ever done to him.

None of them compared to what he'd done to her.

She'd once sent a bunch of girls to the beach when Edward was swimming, exposing his scars to the world.

He'd utterly denigrated her in front of his family. In front of the only other family Bella had ever wanted.

She'd used him, having sex with him for money.

But everything he said implied that it wouldn't matter—he had _boasted_ of his corruption. Nothing she could have done should've been able to touch him. Should've been able to hurt him.

And who was the real victim? It wasn't Edward. If anything, he was the winner.

Bella was the one who'd been hurt. She was the victim in this deal.

And yeah, she did it to herself, but still.

She turned herself into her mother. Prostituted herself.

It was to help her father, but she had another goal, didn't she?

All along, a secret part of Bella had _wanted_ to do it.

It wasn't the thrill of deviance. It wasn't just the excitement of doing something so utterly depraved.

No. Bella did it because she knew how much it would end up hurting her. She _wanted_ to hurt herself. She _wanted_ to suffer.

Maybe she wanted to understand her mother.

Or maybe she just hated herself. Hated herself for being the daughter of a whore.

Hated herself for loving her mother despite everything.

So Bella did this thing.

And she had suffered for it, alright.

 _She was still hurting, goddammit._

Like those games she'd played with Edward—she'd enjoyed them.

But there was something wrong with her—there _had_ to be—because she preferred it when he was rough. She liked to be tied down.

When Edward was gentle, she would rebuke him. Chastise him for his meekness.

Because when he was nice, it was too confusing.

It was easier when he was rough.

And that didn't make any sense at all. Bella had seen her mother's bruises. She knew what they meant.

And Bella was almost raped in an alley one night in Port Angeles.

So what the fuck was Bella doing, asking Edward to be rough?

She wanted it. That was the only explanation. She wanted to suffer.

And she did it to herself.

But she was the one who got hurt.

So who was Edward to complain?

Edward, this paragon of corruption, who was he to accuse her of depravity?

And he wasn't perfect. He had corrupted her, too, in that bathroom. What he did to her—

Which was why Bella hated herself so very much right now, _hated_ that she was still checking her phone, even after two weeks, anxiously hoping for a voicemail, a text, _anything._

She was still hoping that he would call. Apologize. Anything.

Still hoping that they could somehow fix it.

Did she love Edward?

 _How could she?_ She didn't even know what the word meant.

But God, she'd been so happy when they were together.

And when Edward told her that he wanted a real relationship—

Bella had no idea how to be in a relationship. But she wanted to be in one with Edward.

Even after her father died. Edward was the only thing—

And now she was alone.

She must have loved him, she decided at last, otherwise she wouldn't be in such agony over losing him.

Or maybe this was just loneliness.

She'd been lonely before. She was used to it. Preferred it, even, to the chaos and stress of social niceties.

But if this was merely loneliness, then Bella was lonelier than ever. Lonelier than all those nights spent hiding from her mother's johns. Lonelier than those days after her father's accident. Lonelier than all of those weeks after the entire town of Forks turned on her.

She missed her father.

She missed Edward.

She missed Alice and Esme.

But it was over. There was no point in trying.

Bella came home from school one day to find a box of her things sitting on her doorstep. Everything she'd left at Edward's.

Until that moment, she'd been stupidly hoping for a reconciliation. Furious though she was with Edward, she was still dreaming of a miracle.

Until that moment.

The next day, Bella left Edward's key with the doorman of his building, explaining awkwardly and then scurrying away for fear that Edward would appear on the sidewalk.

She was terrified of facing him again.

At the same time, Bella wanted nothing more to face him again. To tell him her side of things. To apologize. To beg him to give her another chance.

To slap him. _To spit on him_. To make him feel just an ounce of the shame she'd felt kneeling on the floor of that bathroom.

To demand to know how he could have possibly treated her so callously. To call him a liar, because he'd never cared for her. To claw out his tongue, for daring to lie to her.

To ask whether he'd already taken another woman into his bed.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

They agreed to meet in a coffeehouse.

Bella was never going to be able to walk into another coffeehouse after this.

God, she hated them, the way they reminded her of all those discussions with Edward.

And now this.

The respectable facades of these coffeehouses just masks for the venality of the insidious creatures who inhabited the booths.

"So good to see you darling," Tanya exclaimed as Bella approached.

Standing, the little bitch kissed both of Bella's cheeks. "Sit down. Sit down. We have so much to discuss."

Bella wanted to hit her. _But what would be the point?_ So Bella forced herself to sit.

"You told Edward," Bella stated.

"Well it was _my_ present to him, wasn't it? I wanted him to appreciate everything I'd done for him." Tanya smiled disingenuously.

"He said that you have recordings."

Tanya waved a hand. "Don't worry about that. All deleted."

"So you got everything you wanted," Bella paused.

But she had to know.

"You got Edward—"

Tanya's smile hardened. "Of course."

Bella's stomach dropped.

"Don't look so sad, darling," Tanya tried to console her. "I know how disappointed you must be to be losing your fun, but you will be compensated for your services."

 _Fuck you_ , Bella thought, but she held her tongue. She held it, because she didn't want Tanya to know that she cared.

Bella had lost everything. She wouldn't lose her pride, too.

Eyeing her, Tanya cocked her head to the side. "But you know," Tanya started, her voice speculative. "I was surprised to come back from vacation and to find that you were still with him. Our deal was for one time only. You can understand why I would be surprised to find you coming back for seconds. Now I wonder why you would do that."

Bella didn't reply.

Pursing her lips, Tanya sneered. "I can't help but conclude that you enjoyed it. In fact, I can't help but wonder if you should be the one paying me."

Bella stared at her.

When Tanya saw that Bella wasn't going to reply, she smirked. "Oh well, a deal's a deal."

Tanya set two quarters on the table.

"What's this?" Bella asked stupidly.

"Your payment."

 _What?_

No. That didn't make sense.

Bella had only agreed to this meeting because she was going to tell Tanya to shove her money up her ass.

Or else Bella was going to take the money and run, because she'd earned it goddammit.

Bella hadn't decided what to do yet.

But this didn't make any sense.

Unless—

Tanya couldn't be serious. Bella had done all of this. She had betrayed herself. Betrayed Edward. Betrayed everything—

For nothing. For two quarters.

For fifty fucking cents.

That was all Bella was worth.

But Tanya wasn't done. She cackled. "And you should be happy that you got that."

Bella wanted to scream.

She wanted to vomit.

She wanted to fly at Tanya.

She wanted—

Oh God, how she wanted—

"It's not as if we wrote anything down," Tanya continued. "There was no written contract between us. Who're you going to complain to?"

Bella didn't say anything. She _couldn't_ say anything.

Tanya stood. "I've paid you what you're worth. Be happy I gave you that much."

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Bella quit everything.

She put in her notice at the data entry center, which was fine because she fucking hated that place.

She put in her notice at the library, even though she liked being around all of the books.

She put in her notice with all of the pet lovers, even though she liked walking the dogs.

She kept the tutoring job, even though she hated the kids, because she didn't want to screw them over right before their finals.

And she kept TAing, because she had to. It was how she was paying for school.

When the email went out about grants, Bella made herself apply for one, even though she knew that she wouldn't get it. She applied because she knew that she was supposed to, because everyone else was applying.

She knew she wouldn't win. The grants always went to the Americanists.

And there was no way that she was going to win a grant when one of the professors on her committee was still withholding approval for her prospectus.

So Bella made herself go back to Dr. Volturri's office. Made herself pretend that she gave a fuck, when really, she was just going through the motions.

Which was why she was here, trying, yet again, to figure out just what the fuck Dr. Volturri wanted.

Because Bella had done everything that this woman had asked for. Bella had gone through four drafts. She had reworked her thesis and reworked her analysis. Bella had removed all of the references to subaltern theory, then the references to Judith Butler, then she had added them both back in. She had completely revised every fucking word.

Bella had even undertaken that little side project on modern sexuality. She never would've gone to Breaking Dawn—never would've met Tanya—but for Dr. Volturri's insistence.

But the chapter Bella had added on just that still wasn't enough. Dr. Volturri was shaking her head, looking annoyed that Bella was wasting her time, once more.

"I'm sorry," Bella said. "I thought that I had addressed all of your concerns with the new draft. Which part didn't you like? Because—"

"Miss Swan, you can rewrite this and rewrite this and it won't do you any good."

Bella swallowed. "I have to write something."

"Yes, but you'll go nowhere if you continue to dance around the issue like this. I've told you, you need to demonstrate your familiarity with the subject you're writing about."

"I've read everything—"

"I'm not talking about writing. I'm talking about experiencing." Dr. Volturri stood, as if intending to show Bella the door.

Bella sat back in her chair. She wasn't leaving this fucking room until Dr. Volturri gave her some concrete advice.

But instead of showing Bella the door, Dr. Volturri walked around the desk and stopped in front of her chair.

"A salable dissertation pushes the envelope," Dr. Volturri explained, perching on the edge of her desk. "Good historical analysis sits on the limit between the past and the present."

Bella was glad that Dr. Volturri seemed to be willing to discuss the matter but—

It was too much. Bella had been working so hard. So so so hard.

Bella had given _years_ to this university.

Bella's father had died _alone_ because Bella was too busy studying and working—

And now this woman was sitting here, telling Bella that it wasn't enough?!

"Dr. Volturri, I'll do anything," Bella pleaded.

Dr. Volturri cocked an eyebrow. "Anything?"

"I added the bit about the modern sex culture. The police closed down that bar Angela recommended but I can find another place."

"I saw the language you added. It wasn't enough."

"I'll do whatever you want."

"Anything?" Dr. Volturri narrowed her eyes. "You want to write about abstinence. About desire."

Bella nodded like an idiot, happy that Dr. Volturri was finally— _finally_ —talking about her project.

But then Dr. Volturri shifted, raising a leg.

For a split second, Bella thought that her professor was actually going to kick her.

But instead, Dr. Volturri settled her foot in Bella's lap, her high heel pressing into Bella's thigh through the fabric of her skirt.

Bella was so shocked that she didn't move. Couldn't move.

"You need to show your readers that you know what you're talking about," Dr. Volturri said.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI – CI

Bella felt—

But she didn't feel. Didn't feel anything at all.

Because she was hollow.

Empty and hollow, like nothing was inside of her. Just a void.

And it felt awful.

Just so awful.

There had to be something wrong with Bella. Something broken, some deformity that everyone else could see just by looking at Bella. Somehow, they could tell that she was weak. Somehow knew that they could do whatever they wanted to her.

Just _use_ her.

Like Dr. Volturri.

Like her mother's johns—the way that they would eye Bella.

Like Tanya.

 _Like Edward._

Bella dashed a tear away.

 _She_ wouldn't _cry. She wouldn't._

There _had_ to be something wrong with her—like a flashing neon sign telling people like Dr. Volturri that she was ripe for the taking.

And maybe they were right. Maybe all of these people were right about her.

After all, Bella had enjoyed those games with Edward, had preferred it when he was in charge.

 _It'll be just like that_ , she told herself. _I'll just pretend that Dr. Volturri is Edward_.

Bella wanted to—

She wanted out of her fucked up miserable little life.

But to do that, she needed to graduate and she wouldn't graduate unless Dr. Volturri signed off on her dissertation.

Bella could complain, alright. She could go to someone.

It would create a big scene. And even if she had evidence, even if Bella "won," Bella's reputation would be ruined, even before she graduated. She would become tainted.

The academic community was small.

Small and incestuous.

So the practical thing—the thing that made the most amount of sense—was to just go through with it. To just do what Dr. Volturri wanted.

To get Dr. Volturri's sign-off on her dissertation and get the fuck out of that school.

Bella was nothing if not practical. It was why she'd agreed to Tanya's offer.

 _And that worked out so well._

It was no good. No good trying to figure it out, trying to look for a solution, because it was all fucked up, everything. Bella's entire life was a fucking train wreck.

So Bella did the only thing that she could.

She turned off.

She turned everything off.

By the time that Bella made it back to her desk from Dr. Volturri's office, she was completely numb. She couldn't feel a thing. A person could have hit her with a two-by-four and she wouldn't have even noticed.

Jacob was suddenly next to her, and she didn't even realize that he was in the room.

"Hey, that weird kid was here looking for you."

"What kid?" Bella asked, because she knew it was what she was supposed to ask. She didn't really give a shit.

"You know, the one who's always here."

 _James_.

James was the weird kid who was always at Bella's desk.

She would've rolled her eyes, but she couldn't summon the energy to express even that much emotion.

But she didn't care. Not really.

 _Fuck that kid._

"Well, I don't have office hours today," she snapped. "So I don't know why he thought that he'd find me."

 _Leave me alone_ , she thought.

"I asked him if he wanted to leave you a message. But he just got weirder." Jacob paused. "He's not doing anything—creepy, is he?"

 _Creepy?_

 _James?_

For a brief instant Bella thought about telling Jacob about everything. About Dr. Volturri and Breaking Dawn and Edward and even her father.

But what would be the point?

James was the least of her problems. And he was too fucking stupid to qualify as genuinely creepy.

"Not really," she said.

She forced herself to meet Jacob's eyes, because she knew that she was supposed to seem grateful for his concern. It wasn't Jacob's fault that Bella was broken.

"I just think he's different," Bella clarified.

"Well, keep an eye on him, will you? And you've got the number for campus police on speed dial right?"

"Yeah," Bella replied, looking quickly away. "I'll be fine."

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Bella was holding on by a thread.

It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. She had two hours until the long weekend would start.

And Bella was fucking exhausted.

She was just so sick of wearing a mask, pretending like everything was alright.

She didn't expect it to be so difficult. If anyone was skilled at wearing masks, it was Bella. She'd fine-tuned her skills covering for her mother all of those years. Not to mention the hell that was her final year in Forks. She was a master of practiced indifference.

And then there was college.

She learned how to fake emotion there—indifference didn't really work. You were supposed to care about things—the right things—and if you didn't, well you'd better fake it.

So Bella was good at subterfuge.

But it was hard to pretend that her world hadn't fallen apart.

 _Materially, nothing's changed_ , she told herself.

Erase the last three months, and everything was basically the same. Bella had no real friends. Dr. Volturri was standing between her and her graduation. And her father—

Well, lying unconscious in a hospital bed or scattered to the wind, it was basically the same thing.

And Bella had a plan. She would agree to Dr. Volturri's demand. Of course she would.

She had whored herself out before. What difference would it make to do it again?

Bella would finally get Dr. Volturri's sign-off.

And Bella would finish her dissertation.

She'd graduate.

She find a job somewhere.

And she'd quietly disappear.

Absorbed into the bland vacuity of academic life. It was what she'd always wanted.

So why was she wracked with despair?

Two hours. Bella had to make it through just two more hours, and then she would be free to lock herself in her bedroom.

Free to be alone.

Free to stop pretending.

Free to just stop everything.

But before she could do that, Bella had to make it through one last class.

It was probably a waste of time, since most of the students wouldn't show the day before Thanksgiving.

Bella was being paid, though, so she walked into class, mask set firmly in place.

She was surprised by the number of students who were there, then realized that they only came because they wanted their papers back.

Scanning the room, Bella was happy to see that James was absent. She wasn't looking forward to his reaction when she returned his paper. She had even asked Professor Eleazar for advice. He was even harsher than she expected. "Tell him to rewrite it," Professor Eleazar said. "We won't accept it as is."

Bella had already spent so much time working with James on this paper. She dreaded going through another round of rewrites.

So she was more than happy to put everything off until after the break.

Bella hurried through the lesson plan. No one wanted to be in class that day, least of all her.

Thus, all of her focus was on the notes she was scribbling on the board. She was going to dismiss the class as soon as they finished this discussion.

She had her back to the door, and when she heard it open, she just assumed that it was a student ducking out early.

She didn't blame the student—she'd leave early too if she could.

So it didn't occur to Bella that there was anything to worry about.

Not until the panicked cries.

 **AN: Thanks for reading.**


	32. Chapter 32

**There's a long section where I babble about gender theory. Feel free to skip.**

 **Warning: Reference to the contemplation of suicide and mention of school violence in this chapter. If you live in the USA and are in crisis, text "Go" to 741741 or call 1-800-273-8255. Other support services available at www dot crisistextline dot org**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

" _Isn't it now high time for them to make the job complete—take a knife and lop off that superfluous piece of meat?"_ – Juvenal [abridged] on castration, translator unknown

Chapter 32

Strike first. Strike first and hard, before your opponent has a chance to strike you.

Or so Edward told himself.

Except that she'd already gotten in a few punches, hadn't she? Bella had already done plenty of damage.

But Edward was damned if he was going to let her know how much she'd hurt him.

And stupid though it may sound, part of him was still hoping that she'd deny it.

Even after what he did to her. Even after that—

He was hoping for a look of dismay. For her to say it was all a mistake. That she had no idea what he was talking about.

Of course, that would mean that Edward had fucked up—fucked up far worse than he'd ever fucked up before.

And the terror that he had done just that spurred him on, summoning the cruelest possible words.

Because he was so fucking scared.

Couldn't she tell? Didn't she know what it was costing him?

Didn't she know what she'd done to him?

Lying to him like that—

Bella had broken him. She had made him into a monster. A corrupt, degenerate—

The very thing he despised.

Because, for all his boasting, Edward despised the creature that he thought he'd become.

The creature that she _made_ him into.

But looking at her now, at the tears in her eyes, he couldn't help wondering—

 _No._

Those tears didn't mean anything. She was lying.

She had lied once. And she was lying again.

Every fucking word out of her mouth was a goddamn lie.

 _Virgin?_

Ha! There were ways to fake that.

She had seduced him with all of her lies. She and Tanya together. So Bella had won her little contest with Edward, after all.

And Bella was right—Edward _wasn't_ the degenerate that he thought he was. At least, not until she was through with him. She _had_ corrupted him, just like she warned she would. She had turned him into a john.

In return, he hurt her the only way he knew how: He made sure that his family knew what she was.

And in the process, he made sure that they knew what _he_ was, too. They would never again make the mistake of thinking that he was redeemable. But more importantly, they would know the truth about Bella.

Naturally, everyone blamed Edward.

A full five seconds of absolute silence followed her exit.

Then Alice started in, screaming at Edward incoherently.

And Esme was crying. Of course, she was.

Emmett was on his feet, looking like he wanted a fight.

And Rosalie and Carlisle and Jasper looked nauseated.

 _Fucking Jasper_ —a virtual stranger—and he already knew everything that he needed to know about Edward.

That he was a piece of shit.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Alice yelled, jumping to her feet.

"Don't you understand?" Edward screamed back. "She was fucking me for _money_."

"Oh, Edward," Esme cried.

"Really?" he asked, looking at her. "I know I'm not your son, but you could at least pretend to give a fuck about me for once. Isabella Swan isn't actually your daughter. If you recall, she _has_ a mother. A whore, just like her."

"Edward!" Carlisle snapped. "Don't talk to your mother like that."

"She's not my mother," Edward reminded him.

"Hey Ed," Emmett called.

"What do you—" Edward began, and was cut short by Emmett's fist hitting his jaw.

"You're an asshole," Emmett finished. Glancing at Rosalie, Emmett shook his head. "Sorry babe, we're outta here."

Edward staggered after Emmett, because he wanted to get in a swing of his own, but Jasper was blocking his path.

"I don't know you man," Jasper said, holding up his hands, "but you need to think about what you're doing."

"Get the fuck out of my way," Edward sneered, shoving at Jasper's chest.

"Fuck you, Edward," Alice snapped, charging at her step-brother, only to be snatched up by Jasper, who proceeded to pull her away.

Edward glared at his would-be attacker. "She was _using_ you Alice. What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"She wouldn't do that," Alice insisted, trying to slap at Edward around Jasper. "She isn't like that."

"How the fuck do you know what she's like?" Edward shook his head. "You haven't seen her for ten years and she just shows up out of the blue and wants to be your best friend. That didn't strike you as strange? She wanted revenge on you."

Alice froze, brought up short by Edward's accusation.

Edward laughed darkly. "Get it now?"

"Go to hell," Alice spit.

"You first."

"What is he talking about?" Esme asked.

"Esme," Carlisle interrupted.

"No," Esme said. "I want to know."

"Tell her," Edward chided. "Tell mommy-dearest how you treated her adopted daughter."

"You need to calm down," Carlisle said.

" _I_ need to calm down?" Edward scoffed. "At least I'm not a hypocrite. I've never pretended to be anything other than what I am. Tell her Alice. Tell her what you did to Bella."

Alice was shaking her head. "I didn't—"

"Liar!"

"Edward, honey." Esme reached for him.

"Don't!" he stepped out of her reach. "Don't fucking touch me. Yet again you've chosen Bella over me. You haven't spoken to her in over ten years and you still care more about her than you've ever cared about me."

"That's not true."

But Edward was done. _What was the point of even bothering?_ "Get out. All of you get out. You're not my family. You never have been."

"Edward, you're overreacting," Carlisle chastised him again.

"I said _get out_!" Edward strode over to the door and held it open. "I'm just some gutter kid that you tried to reform as a social science project and it didn't work. So get the fuck out."

"I'm never speaking to you again," Alice declared, marching past him, Jasper a step behind.

"Promise?" Edward mockingly inquired.

"This isn't over," Carlisle warned.

"Whatever," Edward replied, rolling his eyes, because yeah, he felt like a teenager again. The same complete and total fuck-up he used to be.

The fuck-up he always would be.

And because he didn't feel shitty enough, Esme had to pause in front of Edward and stare at him with a heartbroken expression.

"What?" he asked. _What the hell did she want from him?_

Instead of replying, Esme just threw her arms around Edward, clinging to him as he tried to extricate himself from her grip.

"Little help here, _dad_?" Edward asked.

"Come on, dear," Carlisle said, tugging gently at Esme's arms.

And a minute later, Edward's parents were gone too.

He was alone.

The way that he liked it.

His life was fucking over.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI – CI

 _"Write down your intentions," Edward said. "And I'll write down mine. We'll write down our theories about each other, about what it is we're really doing here, and we'll give the napkins to someone for safe keeping."_

 _Bella looked skeptical. "Why?"_

 _"Why not?"_

 _It only took Bella a moment to decide. Scribbling her answer on a napkin, she glanced up at him. "To whom can we entrust such valuable pieces of evidence?"_

 _Edward fixed her with a suspicious gaze. "Not you."_

 _"I thought I had the moral high ground here."_

 _"Inexperience isn't the same thing as morality."_

" _Says the man who thinks that everyone's corrupt."_

 _"You're just moral by default. There's nothing to brag about there."_

 _Instead of arguing, Bella pulled a manila envelope out of her backpack. The napkins went in the envelope, and Bella closed it, then signed her name over the seal._

 _"We'll give it to Rosalie," Edward said, adding his name over the seal. "I take it you consider her an impartial observer."_

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI – CI

It was probably a mistake, but Edward didn't care.

"What do you want asshole?" Emmett asked, glaring at him across the table.

Alice was took one look at Edward and turned her back, staring resolutely at the bar, refusing to acknowledge him.

It was Wednesday. And Edward knew that his siblings would be at Newton's, because they were fucking sheep and they always kept to the same schedule.

He and Bella had been skipping these little happy hours for the last several weeks. At the time, Edward thought it was because Bella was embarrassed to face Alice after his step-sister learned about Breaking Dawn.

Now, Edward realized that Bella just wanted to keep Edward away from his family, so that they wouldn't know what a traitor she was.

 _Never mind that his explanation made no sense._

"I want the envelope that I gave Rosalie two months ago," Edward explained, trying to cut off any argument, but in no mood for his siblings' bullshit. "I asked her to hold it for me."

"What if I don't have it anymore?" Rosalie shrugged.

"I _want_ that envelope," Edward repeated, trying to hold his temper.

Emmett stood up. "I have zero problem with laying you out."

"Why's it matter so much?" Rosalie asked, narrowing her eyes at Edward.

"Because it's mine."

"Isn't it also Bella's?"

"Don't speak her name to me."

Rosalie scoffed. "Let me get something straight. You treat all women like whores, no? Emmett's told me _all_ about you. And now, you're pissed off because Bella—what? She did _what_ exactly? Because I don't believe a word you say."

"You don't fucking know me," Edward spit.

Rosalie laughed. "I know that I'm the first girlfriend Emmett's introduced you to that you haven't tried to fuck."

"Disappointed?"

Jasper stood up then, effectively forming a barrier between Emmett and his step-brother.

And Edward, realizing that he wasn't getting anywhere by being an asshole, decided to try a different tactic.

He implored Rosalie. "Just give me the envelope and you'll never have to see me again."

He wasn't going to walk out of here until she agreed to give it to him. Edward wanted that goddamn envelope. He _needed_ it.

"Well if it'll get rid of you," Rosalie retorted, flipping her hair over her shoulder.

"Please."

She sighed. "I think it's in my trunk."

Less than a minute later, all three of them were outside—Rosalie digging in her trunk as Emmett glowered at Edward.

"Here it is," Rosalie said, raising the envelope aloft. But instead of handing it to Edward, she tossed it in his general direction.

He grabbed for it and missed.

"Goddamn it," Edward complained, stooping to pick the envelope out of a puddle.

Emmett snorted and told him to fuck off, but Rosalie—ever classy—simply gave him the finger.

The couple disappeared into the bar as Edward ripped the envelope open and pulled out the napkins.

The ink had started to run thanks to the puddle, but the writing clear enough.

Edward and Bella had each opted to write a single word, their intentions for each other, and their suspicions of the other's intentions.

 _Corruption_.

That was the word that Edward had written down.

It was what he wanted to do to Bella. _To corrupt her._

And it was what he thought she wanted in return. _To be corrupted_.

And Bella? Well, her answer differed, but only by degree.

 _Destruction._

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI – CI

Edward deleted all of Bella's photos from his phone and computer. He deleted all of her texts. He blocked her phone number.

He boxed up all of her things and drove out to her apartment, and left the box on her doorstep.

Standing there, at Bella's door, it took him a full five minutes to muster the strength to walk away.

When Edward came home from work the next day and found that Bella had returned his key—had just handed it over to the doorman—he was simultaneously relieved and incensed and hurt.

So fucking hurt.

 _Thank God I never told her that I loved her,_ Edward thought.

But his very next thought was: _I should have told her._

He should have told her, because a sick, masochistic part of him wished that she knew. Wished that there was some way for her to understand just how thoroughly she'd destroyed him. She deserved to know the enormity of her crimes.

 _But you can't really love someone who doesn't love you back_ , Edward chastised himself.

Love had to be mutual, or it wasn't real. He'd read that somewhere once.

And Bella certainly didn't love Edward.

So he _couldn't_ have loved her.

Then why did it hurt so much?

Whatever he felt, it wasn't real, because the real Bella was a lie.

In fact, she had probably moved on already. She was probably in some other guy's arms that very moment. Maybe even that Jacob guy.

It was no business of Edward's.

 _So why did he feel like screaming?_

Bella didn't deserve the comfort of another man's arms. She deserved to suffer, at least for a while.

That was why the thought of her with Jacob—or any other man—filled Edward with the urge to punch something.

Edward certainly wasn't jealous.

Edward didn't _get_ jealous. That wasn't his thing. He enjoyed his time with a woman and then he moved on. Simple as that.

And if he _was_ jealous—

He _wasn't_ —

Well, whatever this was, there had to be an answer.

He would fuck her out of his head.

It had been a long time since Edward had stooped to picking up random women, but his time with Bella had clearly involved a relapse in his addiction. It seemed only fitting that he fall off the wagon completely.

He laid the blame for his relapse at Bella's feet. It was _her_ fault that this was happening.

Breaking Dawn was still closed, but there were other bars.

Edward went to three. At each one, he got as far as buying a woman a drink.

But it was no good. He couldn't bring himself to go any further.

Fortunately, there was always Tanya.

Ever since Edward's altercation with Tanya at the hospital—when he learned of Bella's deception—Tanya had been texting Edward and leaving voicemails, each message progressively more explicit about what she wanted to do to him.

And why not? Tanya had been correct about everything. Her plan had worked. She _knew_ him.

He wondered how much of Bella's behavior was Tanya's doing. How much prompting had Tanya provided?

"It was all you, then?" he asked, not even bothering to hide the annoyance in his voice. Edward knew that Tanya would interpret it as just part of the game.

She smiled at him over her glass, and shifted, tucking her feet up under herself as she reclined on her sofa.

They were at Tanya's apartment. He'd forgotten how gaudy the place was. How cheap.

"I told her what to do," Tanya replied, fairly chortling. But then she sighed, her smile falling. "She was so obstinate, though. She fought with me all of the time."

"I wondered if you told her do that. If you were the one who told her to fight with me."

Tanya rolled her eyes. "I warned her about that. She was going to push you away if she fought so hard. She tried to back out, you know." Tanya huffed. "I made sure that didn't happen."

Edward set that little piece of information to the side for the moment. "So you told her—what? How was she supposed to go about seducing me?"

Tanya blinked. "Does it matter? You're here now, with me."

Edward moved so that he was sitting next to her on the sofa. Sliding an arm around her shoulders, he ran his fingers over her skin. "I want to hear your plan. I want to know how you went about seducing me."

Tanya's breathing quickened. "I showed her what to do. How to flirt. I made her practice."

"You flirted with her?" Edward asked softly, his head close to Tanya's.

"I _tried_. She was a disaster. So awkward. She never knew what to say or do. I gave up in the end."

Edward drew back. Tanya seemed to be telling the truth.

Cupping her chin, Edward studied her eyes. "Are there any other recordings?"

"What?" Tanya asked, pressing her body closer to his.

"Are there any more recordings of Bella? Any copies?

She narrowed her eyes and moved her head, pulling out of Edward's grip. "Why?"

"Because Bella was your gift to me, wasn't she?" Edward assumed an imperious tone. As if he expected more from Tanya. "You gave her to me. And we were interrupted at Breaking Dawn. She's not here."

"She doesn't matter," Tanya argued.

"I want to watch them. I want to listen to them while I fuck you."

Tanya swallowed quickly, her eyes darkened with lust. "I just have the ones on my phone."

And Edward was on his feet. He snatched up Tanya's phone and snapped open the back to pull out the sim card.

"What're you—?" Tanya asked, jumping up angrily.

But Edward easily evaded her, and marching into the bathroom, he flushed the sim card down the toilet.

Angry though he might have been with Bella, the thought of Tanya using those recordings against Bella—of the recordings somehow getting released—filled him with utter rage.

He told himself that he just wanted to destroy any and all evidence of what Bella had done to him. He told himself that he didn't want anyone to know how badly she'd hurt him.

"We're done," he told Tanya.

"Fuck you," she spat. "You don't get to decide that."

Ignoring her, he headed for the door.

"I _know_ you Edward Cullen. You _need_ me."

He left.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI – CI

"The next morning, the prostitute was discovered dead, literally scared to death by the excessive nature of the monk's prayers."

Edward shook his head.

He didn't understand why Bella would _choose_ to write about something like this.

He had already read all of her Facebook posts. Her profile was still public. It made sense that she would have had a public profile when she was looking for Alice. _But now?_ Didn't Bella know how dangerous that was? Didn't she care about things like that?

Bella's account was only a few months old, confirming that it was set up with the sole purpose of finding Alice. Aside from one or two comments on a few of Alice's posts, months ago, there wasn't much. Bella occasionally _Liked_ a fellow grad student's post—mostly grumbling complaints about arcane university machinations—and there were a few pictures, but most of them were posted by her friends.

She only had ten friends: Alice ( _of course, why would Alice unfriend her?_ ) and nine other graduate students, including that asshole Jacob.

Edward was simultaneously happy and dismayed to find that there were only ten names listed as Bella's friends.

 _Happy_ , because fuck her.

And _dismayed_ , because what the fuck?

Edward knew that Bella wasn't exactly a social butterfly. It was one of the things that they had in common. Besides, she was busy with work and school and her father.

Her _father_.

Bella's grief over her father's death was real. Edward wasn't dumb enough to think that she could've faked something like that.

And now she was alone.

 _Good_.

Because she deserved to suffer.

And also _fuck_.

Because _goddammit._ She was suffering alone.

Or was she?

Edward scoured the internet for any other traces of her, any mention of anyone who might have replaced him in her life.

All he found were old school records, awards she'd won, and conferences she'd attended. There were also a couple of articles.

Including the essay that Edward was currently reading, an exposé on the sex lives (or lack thereof) of early Christians.

"Sex workers were objects of derision. So much so, that according to John of Ephesus, one couple even masqueraded as a pimp and a prostitute to demonstrate their piety. They were chased from town to town, their suffering a form of penance."

Edward scoffed. _A sacred pimp and whore?_

As if.

"Christian communities actively shunned individuals who sought to escape the sex trade. Ironically, allegorical prostitutes were becoming the paradigmatic symbol of Christian conversion."

That didn't surprise Edward one bit. Hypocrisy seemed to be a defining characteristic of sanctimony.

"Perhaps the most famous of the reformed harlots, the legendary—probably fictitious—Mary of Egypt, reportedly enjoyed sex so much that she offered herself for free."

 _For free?_

Mary didn't seem to be a very good prostitute.

But apparently, Bella didn't see it that way: "To this end, Virginia Burrus argues that Mary 'nakedly exposes the secret of seduction as a "free gift" that radically disrupts the claims of the masculinist economy of sexuality as production and consumption.'"

Edward didn't even know what that meant.

"The masculinist economy?"

Like it was all the fault of some _men_?

 _Like Bella was forced._

 _Fuck that._

Then again maybe this Virginia— _Virgin_ ia—maybe she just meant that Mary's decision to give it away for free made her look like a wife. Like wives looked like they were having sex for free, when really it was in exchange for shelter and food.

That sounded pretty fucking offensive to Edward. And sexist.

Besides, Mary was either a whore or she wasn't.

Which was it?

Bella seemed reluctant to choose: "Mary's refusal of economic reimbursement mimicked the activity of the sacred temple prostitutes of the pagans. Religion and sex were not mutually exclusive."

Edward scoffed again. So _this_ was where Bella got all of that nonsense. She wanted to have it both ways.

But it didn't work like that. A person was either a sinner or a saint. There was no in between.

"Following her conversion, Mary's body was simply ravaged by the elements. Wandering naked in the desert, she was burned, blasted by wind and the sand. Starved. She who had once supported herself by the labor of her flesh now secured her salvation using the same raw material—her flesh."

 _Bullshit_. If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it.

If it were that easy, _Edward_ could do it.

At the same time, Edward couldn't help thinking that this Mary was an idiot for putting herself through all of that. Only a fool would suffer that way.

And for what?

Edward remembered how Bella had put it to him, that day in the coffeehouse, back before they had sex, before everything went to hell. "Most everyone's waiting until they're dead," she said, "because that's when you'll know the truth, right? You'll see God—or not—and you'll know. But Plotinus said that you didn't have to wait. That you could see God now, today."

He thought she was crazy.

She looked completely serious, though, as if she actually believed the garbage that she was spewing. "You can't just snap your fingers and see God, though. God has to show you the way. And that's why we have beauty. Not just beautiful people but beautiful things, too. From there, you learn to recognize God. That's what Plato said, and Plotinus was a Platonist. He thought that it was a process, learning how to reach the divine. You start small, with beauty in the here and now, and eventually you get to the real thing, the real beauty, God. But if you settle for what you can touch, you'll never get there."

Bella shook her head. "And if you settle for the imitation, you might as well be fucking in the mud for all the good it does you."

And how did Edward reply?

The only way he knew how.

"It's a pretty story," he said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his tone. "It _would_ be a pretty story. Except that there's no such thing as God."

Edward didn't understand how Bella could possibly be so confused about this. So completely and utterly wrong.

"We're _all_ of us fucking in the mud," he continued.

It made him angry. For some reason, the fact that such a smart woman could be so very, very wrong about this just enraged him.

"All your little virgins in their convents. All the soccer moms intent on finding some young stud to practice tantric sex on. Everyone at Breaking Dawn. We're fucking in the mud because it's all we have. As much as you try to dress it up and call it pretty names—call it God—it's nothing but fucking in the mud until we die and then there's just nothing. So you might as well enjoy it while you can. Because otherwise you're just lying to yourself. And Isabella, that's _cowardly_. That's a _coward's_ way out. Admit who you are. Because you're no better than the rest of us. You're a pig, swimming down here in the filth just like everyone else."

And Edward was right.

Because Bella _was_ just like everyone else. She'd invited him to her bed. _For money._

So either she was lying about everything— _she was even lying in this goddamn essay of hers_ —or she had changed for Edward, changed when she was with Edward.

Because she sure as hell didn't find salvation with him.

He kept reading, stopping when he came to a passage about another prostitute, this one a lapsed nun.

This holy woman, this paragon of virtue, first gave into temptation with a priest—a _priest!_ —and then, instead of trying to seek redemption, she decided to throw herself headlong into sin.

"The violence associated with the nun's downfall is striking. Punishing herself for that initial lapse, the nun began beating herself, slapping her own face, and then tearing at her clothing. Afterwards, she became a prostitute, pursuing a profession in which sex and violence often went together. All of this was self-inflicted."

Edward paused.

 _What was Bella saying?_

"Researchers today have found an uptick in sexual risk behavior among rape survivors. It is sometimes difficult to see where the victim leaves off and the actor picks up."

 _What?_

Edward shook his head. Bella wasn't a rape survivor. The police stopped that attack in Port Angeles.

And she was a virgin.

 _Wasn't she?_

He recalled how she had reacted that night—that night when she seemed to go away some place her in head, in the middle of sex—her behavior that night actually scared him. It was like she wasn't even there. Like she wasn't even in the room with him anymore.

 _What the fuck had she been thinking about?_

Edward had noticed how she preferred it rough. How she—

She had _enjoyed_ their games.

Or so he thought

 _Was she faking?_

No, she wasn't faking. Bella clearly _enjoyed_ being hurt. And Edward was not averse to a little pain mixed with pleasure himself. But he knew all too well how the mixture could spell trouble for some.

Particularly people with a history of abuse.

Edward could only imagine the bullshit that Bella had endured under her mother's roof.

 _Had any of those motherfuckers touched her?_

No.

No, he refused to believe that. Bella would've told him.

Wouldn't she?

He wished that he had taken his time. That he'd tried harder. That he'd shown her how he really felt.

Maybe then—

But what was the point of wondering? What was done was done.

It was over.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

"Let me the fuck in, asshole," Emmett yelled.

Edward was pissed. _What the fuck was his step-brother doing here?_

Aside from a few voicemails from his so-called parents—which Edward had refrained from listening to—no one in Edward's family appeared to be speaking to him.

And yet here was Emmett, his "dear brother," yelling pounding on the door of his apartment.

"The fuck do you want?" Edward snarled, opening the door. Because _fuck this shit_. Edward could only put up with so much.

But Emmett just pushed past him, charging into the living room.

Huffing in annoyance, Edward closed the door and followed him.

"You going to tell me what you're doing here?" Edward asked, crossing his arms. Emmett was a big motherfucker, but Edward didn't really give a shit at this point.

"You're a dick," Emmett replied, rounding on him.

Edward laughed mirthlessly. "And?"

"How many of my girlfriends did you really sleep with?"

Edward shrugged.

Emmett shook his head. "And yet, for some reason, I give a shit that you're throwing your life away."

"My life is right on track."

"You look like shit. Your apartment looks like shit."

Emmett was right about that. Edward's eyes were bloodshot. He hadn't shaved in days and his clothes looked as if he'd slept in them.

The apartment was trashed, thanks to an unsuccessful search for a flash drive that Edward thought might contain a few of Bella's pictures.

The pictures he'd deleted.

And the furniture that wasn't knocked over was littered with half-empty boxes of takeout and (completely) empty bottles of liquor.

"Well," Edward replied, "fortunately for you, it's not your problem."

"But it _is_ my problem. Because, like it or not, you're my brother. And you're breaking my parents' hearts, not to mention Alice—"

"Spare me the guilt-trip."

"Why should I?" Emmett was trying hard to contain his temper, but Edward wasn't making it easy. "You've earned it."

"What do you think I'm going to do? Apologize?"

"For starters."

"Well, that's not going to happen. You all need to learn that you can't count on me."

"And Bella?"

Edward's eyes narrowed. "What about her?"

"You're just going to cut her off?"

"It's already done." Edward smirked.

"Are you serious?"

"You know what she did to me. How can you say that?"

"Because you're an asshole. And because I don't buy your story. That isn't the girl I remember. And even if it's true," Emmett paused. "Knowing you, you've done some pretty fucked up things to her, too."

"She was well compensated."

"Bullshit. Did you see her eyes? You broke her fucking heart."

Edward chuckled darkly. "Yeah, because her little plan was ruined."

"What plan? Explain it to me. Because I don't get it. You think she was out for your money?"

"Not _my_ money."

"Gifts then?"

"Oh it was cash. And I wasn't the one paying her."

A look of confusion passed over Emmett's features. "Wait a minute. Who would do something like that?"

"A woman I know. It doesn't matter," Edward tried to deflect.

"The fuck it doesn't matter. Some woman that you just happen to know decides to pay Bella to have sex with you? Just out of the blue? Stuff like that doesn't just happen."

"You don't know Tanya."

" _Tanya?_ That slut you brought home to meet mom and dad?" Emmett chuckled at the look on Edward's face. "Oh yeah, I know all about that. They didn't call her a "slut," but it was obvious. I overheard them talking about her."

Emmett snorted. "Guess that explains why someone like Bella was sticking around with your candy-ass."

 _Well, at least Emmett was finally starting to see the light_ , Edward thought, feeling vicious.

But then he thought back over what Emmett had said.

" _I just have to record the two of us together?"_ Bella had said in that recording on Tanya's phone. _"One recording and I'm done? You'll give me my money?"_

" _Once and you're done,"_ Tanya confirmed.

It didn't matter. Bella had lied to him.

"I still don't get it," Emmett said. "The woman hated people picking up her bar tab at happy hour. And you're telling me that she would do something like this? For money?"

Edward recalled how Bella was so uncomfortable every time he tried to give her a gift. How she objected whenever he'd take her to a so-called "fancy" restaurant.

In that, at least, she was nothing like the other women he'd spent any extended time with.

"She fucking hated accepting gifts from Alice, too," Emmett continued. "Which was ridiculous because Alice would hand her dresses out on street corners if she could."

Edward didn't want to listen to this anymore. "Emmett, stop. You don't know the whole story. And you don't know Bella."

If anyone knew Bella, it was Edward. And he didn't know her at all.

"Alright," Emmett conceded, crossing his arms over his chest. "Maybe I don't know her. But I know you. You're obviously broken up about her. Why don't you try to fix things?"

"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

"Tell me what she did that's so wrong."

Edward spit the words. "She took _money_ for _sex_ , Emmett. I don't know how much more explicit I can be."

"And you've slept with your brother's girlfriends, for free. How're you any better?"

"Because I didn't know. Because she didn't tell me." _Because she'd hurt him._

"What difference does it make? You don't think you got your money's worth?"

"Fuck you!" Edward cursed.

Emmett just laughed in his face. "Didn't you say as much to her? We all heard you, asshole. Don't give me shit for repeating something you said. I take it your with this Tanya woman now?"

Edward grimaced. "No. No, I'm done with her for good. I've _been_ done with her."

"What do you mean?"

"Before Bella. After I introduced Tanya to my parents. That was when I realized—" Edward swallowed. "That's when I realized that my condition was out of control. I stopped seeing Tanya then."

"And then Bella showed up?"

Edward hesitated. "I—Tanya and I were through. But she wasn't taking it well, I guess. She found Bella."

Emmett blinked. "Hold up. See if I get this straight. You're a train wreck." Emmett held up a hand. "Just stating the facts. And this Tanya woman is clearly just as much of a train wreck as you, otherwise why would she be interested in your candy ass? The two of you have this sick relationship going on, but then you call it quits, because you finally figure out that you need to get your shit together. And you're what—ignoring her?"

Edward nodded.

"So, you're ignoring Tanya," Emmett said. "And to get your attention again, Tanya goes and finds Bella. And _pays her to have sex with you?_ I still don't understand."

Edward ran his hands through his hair. "Tanya and I did shit sometimes. We weren't exactly vanilla."

"And Bella just went along with it?"

"I don't know the details."

"It sounds to me like you and Tanya were just using Bella for some twisted little game."

"Oh, believe me, Bella got what she deserved."

"Wow, I don't even know how to handle you right now."

"Then why are you bothering?"

"Because, asshole, you are my brother whether I like it or not. And I'm sick of you breaking our parents' hearts."

"I can't be what they need me to be. They should just accept that."

"That's bullshit. The Edward I grew up with—he's a dick. I wouldn't trust him to take care of my cactus. He didn't care who he hurt. But the Edward I started to get to know a few weeks ago, he was still a dick but he wasn't the megalomaniacal prick that I had stopped introducing to my girlfriends. I don't know if Bella was the reason for that change, but the megalomaniacal prick sure seems like he's back."

Edward shrugged. "That nice guy, or whatever, from a few weeks ago, he was just a blip."

"Then why're you so hung up? Why do you care if Bella lied? I would think that a megalomaniac would get off on the idea that two women were playing some game with him. He'd _love_ it."

Edward didn't reply.

Emmett nodded. "There's only one reason that you'd be angry at Bella—angry that she didn't tell you—because you thought it was real. Because you thought that she actually cared for you."

"So what if I did? If anything, that should make you understand why I can't just forgive her."

"I'm not saying you just forgive her. Be angry as hell. But I take it that you didn't really give her a chance to explain."

Edward shook his head.

"Get some closure," Emmett advised "If she was just using you, then fine, cut the bitch off. If she really cares, though, then you'd be a dumb-ass if you didn't give her a second chance." Emmett scoffed. "It's not like you really have the moral high ground."

Edward just glowered at his step-brother.

Emmett sighed. "Fine, be stubborn. But in the meantime, Thanksgiving is in two days. It's my understanding that you were planning to bring Bella back to Forks. Clearly, that's not going to happen. But our parents still want to see you."

"Are you kidding me?" Edward thought Emmett was out of his mind. "Alice isn't even speaking to me."

"She'll survive."

"I'm not going to Forks."

"Too busy feeling sorry for yourself?" Emmett asked. "Or maybe you're too busy, tearing your apartment apart, looking for scarf that Bella left behind so that you can cry yourself to sleep with it?"

Edward's expression told Emmett everything he needed to know.

"Thought so," Emmett chuckled. "I'll pick you up tomorrow at 8 am. We'll drive down together."

"Why would I go with you to Forks?"

"Because you don't want to be alone. And because I don't trust your sorry ass to get yourself there alone."

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Thus, Edward found himself sitting in the backseat of Emmett's jeep, ready to scream after enduring four and a half hours (fucking holiday traffic) of a sickening display of flagrant and unapologetic flirtation.

Fortunately the lovers left Edward alone for the most part. Apparently, Rosalie wasn't speaking to him, and Emmett was still referring to him as "the asshole."

Not that Edward gave a shit. It was just what he deserved, after all.

He was, however, exceedingly grateful when Emmett finally pulled into their parents' driveway.

The holiday hadn't even officially started, and Edward had already stomached as much family-togetherness as he could take.

Which was why he was so grateful to be left to his own devices.

Despite the long car ride, Rosalie was eager to see Forks. So Emmett took her for a tour.

Esme wasn't at home. No doubt she was off delivering food baskets to the poor or ministering to wayward orphans.

And Carlisle was nowhere to be found. He was probably discovering the cure to cancer or some shit.

So Edward decided do the thing that he would always do when he was still a teenager, and he felt like he was going to lose it.

He pulled on his sneakers and his running clothes.

And he ran.

He took the old trail from his parents' house, setting off at fast pace.

And as Edward got deeper and deeper into the woods, he tried to find a comfortable rhythm.

He had been slacking on his running regimen as of late. At first it was because he was having so much sex with Bella, he didn't feel like he _needed_ to run. And then, when she walked out—when he _threw_ her out—he had tried running in the city. But it

So he started drinking instead.

Nevertheless, Edward wasn't exactly out of shape.

But his muscles were already burning by the end of his first mile.

And he'd forgotten how much harder it was to run on a trail than on pavement. He had to watch for roots and rocks.

He tripped twice—actually eating dirt—before he got used to just keeping his eyes on the ground.

Edward liked running in the city because it didn't require any thinking. He could just run and run and run until he was exhausted.

But here, he had to pay attention. He could pick his way through the obstacles.

That was probably a good thing, though, because it distracted him from the thing that had been monopolizing his thoughts for the last two weeks.

It wasn't a perfect distraction.

Edward pushed himself harder, trying to push Bella's face out of his head.

Going faster made him more reckless, and he fell again, this time tearing holes in his sweats and bloodying his knees.

He was on his feet again a beat later and off. He wouldn't stop. He wouldn't be slowed down.

He'd run and he'd run and he'd run.

He'd forgotten about the overlook. By the time he got there, he was tired and dirty and bloody. But after all of these years away, it was still the same.

The view still took his breath away.

Edward stood there, on the shelf of gray rock, staring down at the green-blue pines.

He used to sit there, thinking about what would happen if he fell. Almost daydreaming about it.

He'd break a leg for sure. Probably an arm and some ribs. But he wouldn't snap his neck. Not unless he went head first.

He might die if no one found him right away. Otherwise, he'd have to explain how it happened. They would think it was a cry.

Staring down at the treetops, it struck that it almost looked like the surface of a green ocean, rippling under the sky.

And he couldn't help remembering the first time he'd stumbled upon Bella First Beach.

He heard a sound, a whisper, behind him. And he whipped his head around, almost as if he expected to see her there, on the shelf of rock behind him.

But he was alone.

Completely and utterly alone.

And it wasn't fair. And it wasn't right.

And worst of all, it hurt. Edward couldn't understand why it hurt so fucking much.

 _It's your fault_ , he thought, thinking not of Bella, but of himself.

He was the one responsible for his pain.

And he had hurt Bella, too.

He was too rough in that bathroom. No rougher than any of their many other times together, but too rough, because it wasn't a game. Because he had been _trying_ to hurt her.

Not physically, but mentally.

Edward had been trying to humiliate her.

He had, in fact, been acting out the plan that he had devised with Tanya the weekend that he took Tanya home to meet his family. He and Tanya planned to put on such a horrible display that his family would never again be able to look at him without knowing what a pig he was. He had been trying to hurt them. To hurt himself.

And he had ended up hurting Bella.

Edward kept returning to that look in her eyes. The hurt and reproach with which she looked up at him in that bathroom—like Bella couldn't believe that he could do such a thing—it was enough to make him almost second-guess himself, standing there like that.

But he had already gone too far. So he doubled-down.

" _Like mother, like daughter."_

It was like a knife to the abdomen, seeing the guilt in her eyes at his words, receiving that confirmation.

But that wasn't what tore at him now. No, now it was the _acceptance_ of her fate. The fact that she didn't argue with him. Didn't try to tell him her side.

Didn't she think that he was worth fighting for?

 _I ought to be worth more_ , he thought.

But _was_ he?

Edward had gone out of his way to hurt her. He didn't delude himself into thinking that he was a good man. He might not have been utterly corrupt, but he was corrupted.

 _She only did what you asked_ , Edward reminded himself. _You_ told _her what you were._

And _he_ was the one who had made that wager with Tanya.

He recalled that night.

 _"You're wrong," he said to Tanya._

 _And Tanya_ was _wrong._ _She didn't know anything about Bella. "She's incorruptible."_

 _"Well," she chuckled, "we'll just have to try extra_ hard _." Her hand brushed against Edward's thigh. "Let's consider it an experiment, shall we?"_

 _"To corrupt Bella?" Edward asked, removing Tanya's hand from his thigh._

 _"Is that her name?" Tanya chuckled again._

Edward realized now that Tanya had been playing with him, even then. She was only pretending not to know who Bella was.

And Edward had fallen for it. Like an idiot.

 _He shook his head. "This so-called experiment—"_

 _Tanya smiled. "To corrupt Isabella Swan. I know you want to."_

 _He thought about what she was suggesting. It was monstrous._

 _But he was a monster_.

And that was the truth. Even if this so-called seduction was just a set-up, it was only what Edward deserved. It was the sort of depraved thing he would've normally enjoyed.

Besides, it wasn't as if he was a passive participant. He had set out to seduce Bella.

What did that make him?

Oh, he wasn't planning to hurt her. He had been telling himself that it was for her own good. That she was closing herself off from the pleasures she deserved.

What a fucking idiot.

 _How she must have laughed at me,_ he thought.

But it didn't seem like she was laughing at him at the time. If anything, she seemed reluctant.

Was that just part of the act? Was she just playing hard to get?

Edward recalled the night that he and Bella had made their wager.

 _"You don't know me at all," Edward retorted._

 _"Yet you claim to know me so well," Bella huffed. "You keep telling me that I should_ want _things. But I don't want anything. You say that you know all about my desires. You don't know anything."_

 _"What is it you're afraid of?" Edward asked. He wanted her to admit it. To say it out loud. She was afraid of_ feeling.

 _"Being judged."_

 _"I don't judge you," Edward objected, annoyed because he was the last person to ever judge anyone._

 _"You do nothing but."_

 _And, on second thought, Edward had to admit that she was right. He_ did _judge her. Grimacing, he said, "I can't help it. You're just so," he struggled for the word, "unmade."_

 _She cocked her head to the side. "That's how you see me? Unmade?"_

 _"Unfinished. Undone."_

 _"And how would you have me be_ finished _?"_

 _Could he really say it out loud? "I would—I would have you_ corrupted. _"_

 _Bella's jaw fell open. She gazed at Edward in apparent shock. "Corrupted?"_

Edward realized now that her shock was feigned. It was part of the act.

 _Wasn't it?_

He wouldn't have thought that she was that good of an actress.

 _Bella fell quiet for a moment, then pursed her lips. "What of you?" she asked. Her eyes swept over Edward, head to toe and back, like he was a piece of meat. "Could you be corrupted too?"_

 _"No. I'm already corrupt." The suggestion was nonsensical._

 _"So a person can only be corrupted towards—what is it—debauchery? You want me debauched?"_

" _You needn't call it 'debauched,' but yes. You'd be corrupted._ _And afterwards…you wouldn't be the same. You wouldn't have to be, I mean. You'd be free. Don't you see?" Edward felt strangely as if he was trying to convince her as much as himself. "You've put yourself in a prison."_

 _"I'm not in a prison. I'm happy."_

 _"How can you be happy if you've cut everyone off?"_

 _"That's exactly it. I don't want anyone."_

 _"But don't you realize what you're missing?"_

 _She sneered. "What? A husband? Children?"_

The memory of that conversation now—

Edward's chest was burning.

Had he really imagined a life with her?

 _Yes_. Yes, goddammit he had. Maybe not marriage, not children—he didn't fool himself into thinking that he was cut out for that—but he had imagined the two of them, together.

 _But she wasn't buying it. "Masen, I'll tell you what."_

Edward _hated_ it when she called him _Masen_. When she called him by his mother's name.

He was a _Cullen_.

Yet, he would give anything to hear her call him _Masen_ again.

" _I'll get married when you do," she taunted him._

 _Edward was taken aback by the vehemence in her voice. "That's different. I've gone…too far, in my corruption. I'm no longer suitable for family-life. But I wouldn't let you go so far off course." He wouldn't. He'd stop himself from completely corrupting her. He could do that, couldn't he?_

If only he knew then what he knew now.

 _"You wouldn't_ let _me go off course?" Bella scoffed. "How kind of you."_

 _"What about a wager?" Edward asked._

 _"What?"_

 _"A wager."_

 _"What would I have to do?"_

 _"Nothing you didn't want to," he assured her. "Just give me a chance."_

" _A chance for what?"_

" _To corrupt you."_

" _What do you mean 'corrupted'?" she asked. "I'm not having sex with you."_

Something inside of Edward twisted at the memory of that declaration. Because _that_ was a lie. Bella had been deceiving him that night.

Wasn't she?

She seemed so—

Even if she was having second thoughts, she clearly changed her mind at some point.

What was it? What made her decide to betray him?

If only he knew.

" _I don't mean that," he said that night, replying to her comment about sex._

But he was lying about that, wasn't he? Edward already knew that he wanted Bella in his bed, even then.

So yeah, maybe Bella was lying to him, but he was also lying to her.

" _I'm not talking about sex," he continued. "Just—just give me a chance to make you see what you're missing."_

 _"Why would I agree to something like that?" Bella asked._

 _He scrambled for an explanation that would sound plausible. "Consider it research. For your dissertation."_

 _"Why would you do this?"_

 _And he couldn't help it. The words just came tumbling out of his mouth. "It would…_ please _me to see you corrupted."_

 _Edward held his breath, watching as an emotion he couldn't identify flashed over Bella's face, and she closed her eyes._

Was she wrestling with her own conscience then? Was she undecided about whether or not to go through with Tanya's plan?

Had _he_ pushed her over the edge? Was Edward's wager the thing that drove Bella's final decision?

If he had just ignored Tanya's suggestion. If he wasn't such a depraved—

No one forced Edward to accept Tanya's challenge. He accepted of his own free will.

Because he wanted an excuse.

He _wanted_ Bella.

It was _his_ fault.

 _Bella gazed at him, a steely resolve flashing in her eyes. "If I'm vulnerable to corruption, then so are you."_

 _Edward couldn't help the snort of derision. "I can't become a virgin again."_

 _She tsked. "You've abandoned yourself to luxury and vice."_

" _I'm not hurting anyone."_

" _But you_ are _—or at least, you_ could _hurt someone—the true hedonist is utterly untrustworthy. He's so addicted to his desires that he'd do anything to satisfy them."_

And Edward had been so shocked by the accusation.

He had been incensed, actually, because what the fuck was she talking about?

Edward would never take anyone against her will.

And how dare she accuse him of being an addict?

Could she tell?

Was it that obvious?

 _Bella sniffed primly. "You can be seduced away from that."_

 _Angrier than he dared let on, Edward adopted a haughty tone in turn. They settled the details of the plan. He laid out the terms: "The nature of your corruption will be such that you'll be incapable of denying it once it happens. I win when you agree that you've been corrupted."_

 _"And vice versa."_

 _"What are we competing for?" Edward knew the prize that he wanted of course. But he wouldn't give it away just yet._

 _Bella smiled, a vicious, competitive kind of smile. She said, "Why, merely the pleasure of corrupting another, of course."_

 _That was good enough for Edward. For now. "I accept your terms."_

Edward had worked so very hard to lay all of the blame on Bella, but really, he was only trying to hide his own culpability.

And thinking back to that look in her eyes that day in his apartment, when he humiliated her so thoroughly.

That look of acceptance—it wasn't just an acknowledgement of her guilt, it was a look of acquiescence. Like she was giving up.

Like she thought she deserved it.

And that just tore at him. Because no one deserved what he was doing to her.

So what if she took money—

Edward didn't even know what she needed the money for. If she needed it that badly, he would've helped her. Why didn't she come to him?

 _She didn't trust you_.

And why should she? Edward had turned on her without a second's hesitation.

Was that love?

He was a fucking hypocrite he was, boasting about his corruption, boasting of his degenerate nature. Only to turn around and _judge_ her, to treat her like just so much filth. Like he thought that _she_ was the degenerate.

What the fuck had he done?

 _It was because she lied._

Really?

Or was it because Edward was, in fact, a fucking hypocrite?

Was it because he thought that he had the right to judge her for what she chose to do with her own body?

 _Like her mother?!_

Bella was _nothing_ like her mother. Bella's mother was a monster—and it had nothing to do with the fact that she was prostitute. Bella's mother was cruel and selfish. Edward could see what she was a mile off.

She was just like Edward's mother.

Bella was _nothing_ like either one of them.

Edward remembered all of the times Bella had defended prostitution, had said it ought to be decriminalized. At the time, he thought that she was just defending her mother, but she was also defending herself, wasn't she?

And he thought he was so fucking enlightened. So open-minded. So free of judgment.

 _Ha!_

No one deserved what he did to Bella. It wasn't the act itself. In another context, it would've meant something different.

But in _that_ context, with _those_ words, it was disgusting.

Edward had treated Bella like trash.

No prostitute, no person, deserved that.

And all of that time, he'd been imagining that he was going to corrupt Bella. If only he knew—she was above corruption. He couldn't even touch her.

Yet—

Was she not a masterpiece of his own doing? Kneeling there, on the floor of that bathroom. That broken look in her eyes. Was she not the very pinnacle of all of his efforts at corruption?

Edward had made Bella into the very last thing that he would have wanted her to be.

 _No_.

No, that was giving him too much credit.

Bella had taken his crime against her and turned it against him. The monster destroyed her maker.

She wasn't corrupted. She wasn't—

And whatever she might have done to him, was well deserved. It was all his fault. From the very beginning.

He was the one who told Alice to drop Bella all of those years ago, back in high school, after everything happened with Bella's mother. He told Alice that they would think she was a whore—that _Alice_ was a whore—hanging out with the daughter of a whore. He pretended that he had Alice's best interests at heart.

The truth was that Edward couldn't bear the reminder of his own (imagined) crimes with Bellas mother. He couldn't imagine facing Bella with the knowledge—the belief—that he had fucked her mother in exchange for money.

If only Edward had kept his fucking mouth shut.

The Cullens should have been there for Bella. And now that he knew everything that Bella went through at time, he knew just how much Bella had needed someone. The good people of Forks had put her through hell.

If Edward had just kept his mouth shut, the Cullens would have been there for Bella after Port Angeles.

They would have been there for her when Charlie's condition declined.

 _Oh my fucking God!_

Because _that_ was why Bella had agreed to Tanya's plan. She needed money for her father's treatment.

It was all so fucking obvious. And Edward was an idiot for not seeing it sooner.

It couldn't have been easy for Bella to put herself through college with her father in the hospital. Edward knew that there was insurance, and that they had sold the house in Forks, but still.

 _Fuck._

If only the Cullens had been there. They would have helped.

Bella never would have even considered Tanya's proposal.

So it really was all Edward's fault.

And he missed her. Oh God, did he missed her. He had fucked up so badly—

But he missed her.

He missed her.

He missed her.

He missed her.

The pain was visceral. A searing pain in his chest—

But he was used to that.

He was used to the anxiety.

It had encouraged him to seek out relief all of those years, encouraged his addiction.

But something was new—this trembling violence in all of his cells.

Edward felt like he was going to scream—

And so he did.

He screamed aloud.

Screamed to the trees and the sky and the dirt.

Screamed in frustration and pain and hurt, his scream startling a bird so that it cried back at him and took flight. A rebuke.

And then he felt sick. The adrenaline drained out of him so quickly that it left him feeling queasy.

He felt unsteady. Like he might collapse.

And he recognized the feeling in his chest, the weariness of his limbs.

The soul-sucking emptiness and the hollow, exhausting depression.

Edward remembered all of the times that he'd sat in that break room at work, staring out the window, wondering how hard he would have to swing the chair in order to shatter the glass, wondering how long it would take him to hit the ground, wondering how long it would take him to die.

He remembered arguing about it with Bella.

Oh, not about whether or not he would commit suicide. He had never admitted his speculation along those lines to anyone.

No, they were arguing about Seneca.

A dead fucking Roman.

" _Seneca killed himself," Bella said. "It's considered one of the noble deaths. He was praised for it."_

 _She said it so nonchalantly. Like suicide was just a thing a person did. Like it was actually an option. Something even a rational person might do._

" _Praised? For killing himself?" Edward cleared his throat, afraid of giving himself away._

 _He knew what he was supposed to say. What a_ normal _person would say._

" _What's noble about that?" he asked, his tone clearly one of condemnation._

 _But Bella was nonplussed. "Nero had sent for him, and Seneca knew what that meant. He was going to die one way or another. So he decided to face death on his own terms. He took his own life."_

 _Edward was suddenly weary._

 _Was she testing him? Maybe she could tell that he had thought about it. And she was trying to trick him into admitting it._

 _He knew what would happen then. Lectures and threats. Bullshit pleas. Nonsense and lies about how he had so very much to live for._

 _He wasn't going to fall for it._

" _You don't think he should have tried to fight back?" Edward asked, watching Bella very carefully. "Stood up to Nero?"_

" _The Romans didn't view suicide the same way we do. Killing himself like that was meant to be a slap in Nero's face."_

" _You're telling me that you're ok with suicide?" Edward refused to believe it._

" _Asking me how I feel about suicide is different than asking me the historical question of how the Romans felt about suicide."_

 _Fuck that. "I'm asking_ you _. How do you feel about suicide?"_

 _Bella frowned. "It's not for me to say."_

 _Edward wasn't buying it. "Bullshit. If you try to kill yourself today in America, they put you in the hospital, against your will, and charge you for all of the trouble you've given them. There're actual laws on the books condemning suicide. So don't tell me that you don't think you have a right to say one way or the other."_

 _Bella hesitated. "I think that a person can be of sound mind and want to die at the same time," she said at last. "I think that suicide can be a rational decision."_

" _You don't think that's unhumanitarian of you?" Edward asked in a snide tone. He wasn't buying a word out of her mouth. He knew just what society thought of suicide._

" _What's more humanitarian than giving a person power over whether he lives or dies?"_

 _Edward didn't reply. What was he doing anyway, talking about this with Bella?_

 _He should've kept his mouth shut. Should've changed the subject._

 _He forced himself to laugh. "You want me to take moral advice from a guy who killed himself?"_

 _Bella smiled tentatively. "Well, not about the suicide part. And anyhow, it's a different time. Suicide doesn't mean the same thing anymore. I think that if I was sentenced to death that it might be worth it to wait for the last second, to make them kill me, in case I got a reprieve."_

" _And to face down the motherfuckers who were doing it to you."_

" _That too."_

 _Desperate to talk about something else—anything else—Edward pushed his gift towards Bella. It was the book he wanted her to read,_ Terese, the Philosopher _. "I don't know if the guy who wrote it was ever involved in any scandals."_

 _Edward was lying, of course. The Marquis d'Argens had tried to kill himself. But Edward was done talking about that subject with her._

Standing there, on that cliff, gazing down on the shivering pines, Edward felt a sense of anticipation.

This was it. Either he took the final step or—

Or _what_?

Or else he went back to Seattle and threw himself at Bella's feet. Begged her forgiveness and hoped—hoped against hope—that Emmett was right. That she genuinely cared about him and would be willing to give him a second chance.

A chance that he didn't deserve.

His sudden desire to find Bella was like a fire in Edward's veins.

He flew back down the trail.

He couldn't help falling, tripping in his haste, tearing several more holes in his knees, the blood running down his legs.

But he could hardly feel the pain.

He was exhausted. But he was relying on muscle memory to keep his legs pumping.

The snow started falling when he was about three miles from home. It came down fast, the flurries thick and white, but Edward didn't slacken his pace.

He was lucky not to fall again, skidding as the trail left the cover of the trees.

He flat out sprinted for the door, racing inside and rushing upstairs to grab his things.

He didn't even bother to change clothes. He pulled out his phone so that he could find a ride. If he could get to Port Angeles, he could rent a car.

Preoccupied, he fumbled with the keypad, and accidentally opened a text message that had arrived during his run.

He wasn't really interested in anything that anyone had to say. And he didn't recognize the number.

But he was baffled by the message: " _I'm so sorry. I know how much you cared for her. - Tan_ ya."

Edward had long since blocked Tanya's phone number. She had used someone else's phone.

Annoyed, Edward was about to close the screen when he noticed that Tanya's name was followed by the words "School shooting" and a url.

He was confused, to say the least. But he clicked on the link and a YouTube video came up.

A young woman was crying in what looked like a classroom. The sound of a gunshot rang out in the background as the woman screamed.

"Miss Swan—my TA—Bella Swan. She's dead!"

 **AN:**

 **Remember, this is an HEA. And it's a real, canon couples, this-world (not supernatural) HEA.**

 **Sources for the essay include John the Dwarf** _ **Saying**_ **40; Palladius** _ **Lausiac History**_ **2.37;** _ **Life of Thaïs**_ **83-84; Virginia Burrus,** _ **Sex Lives of Saints;**_ **French,** " **Maintaining Boundaries: The Status of Actresses in Early Christian Society,"** _**Vigiliae Christianae**_ **52 (1998); Montserrat,** _ **Sex and Society in Graeco-Roman Egypt;**_ **S. Dingfelder, "Rape Circumstances Differentially Affect Later Sexual Behavior,"** _ **American Psychological Association**_ **35 (2004).**

 **I don't like how this chapter begins with the events immediately following Bella's departure leaving the apartment. I'm worried that it's too jarring given the last chapter. I am wondering if I ought to have interwoven the two narratives.**

 **For those of you who think Edward's getting off light, I'm not done with him. And for those of you who think that he's gone too far—that he can't be forgiven—I see your point. If you're still reading, I'm interested in knowing what you think after the next chapter.**

 **Thanks for reading and I'm sorry it's not uplifting.**

 **I have started posting a new story, though.**

 **It's also depressing.**

 **Because, well, that's kind of where life's at right now.**

 **I am still working on the EPOV for** _ **Book of Monsters**_ **and the sequel to** _ **Gothic**_ **("working" here means that I haven't touched them for weeks/months, but they're still on the list of things to do). And yes, I know that no one even remembers** _ **Book of Monsters**_ **, but I said I was going to do it, so I am.**


	33. Chapter 33

**It appears that some readers are confused about what happened with Dr. Volturri in chapter 32. My apologies for the ambiguity. I meant to imply that Dr. Volturri had sexually propositioned Bella. Here were Bella's thoughts as she contemplated the proposition:** _I'll just pretend that Dr. Volturri is Edward_ …the practical thing—the thing that made the most amount of sense—was to just go through with it. To just do what Dr. Volturri wanted. **This is as far as this issue has progressed. Bella has only contemplated the problem. No definite progress has been made in any direction.**

 **Warning: Reference to a school shooting and self-harm in this chapter. If you live in the USA and are in crisis, text "Go" to 741741 or call 1-800-273-8255. Other support services available at www dot crisistextline dot org.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

 _'Let me suffer what I must suffer_.' – Sophocles, translator unknown

Chapter 33

Bree Tanner had always enjoyed her Ancient Med discussion. So even though most students were skipping class that day—it was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, after all—Bree decided to attend.

Bree had always liked the television show _Xena, Warrior Princess_. She had signed up for a course on the ancient Mediterranean hoping to learn all about the Amazons and how Cleopatra was in fact (maybe) a warrior-princess in disguise.

Hence her disappointment when the class made it clear just how inaccurate the show had been. But Bree found herself enjoying the discussion nevertheless.

In large part, this was because the TA, Isabella Swan, wasn't a tool.

Most of the time, anyhow.

By definition, all TAs were tools, but Isabella Swan was among the best of them.

She insisted that everyone call her Bella, since she didn't have her PhD yet. But TAs always wanted to be called by their first names, like that humanized them or something. The friendlier they were, the more you got stiffed when it came to grades. Bella wasn't like that, though. She didn't try to be your best friend, but she still managed to treat people like they were actual human beings. She admitted when she didn't know something, and seemed to like it when people disagreed with her. Bella was clearly a history geek, which was probably a job requirement. Yet she seemed to realize that most people didn't give a shit why Caesar crossed the Rubicon. (Hell, most people didn't even know that the Rubicon was a thing.) Sometimes Bella would even let the students decide what the lesson was going to be about. Bree had never had a TA do that that before.

So even though Bree could've skipped class that day, she decided to go to discussion.

Apparently, she wasn't the only one who enjoyed Bella's class enough to delay the holiday by a few hours. The classroom was practically full.

And discussion that day was even weirder than normal, which was saying something, considering all of the crazy debates that Bella had insisted on having.

They were _supposed_ to be talking about the fall of the Roman Empire, which had seemed pretty cut-and-dry to Bree when she was doing the reading.

But here they were, talking about some saint, who was apparently stabbed to death by his own students.

"He wouldn't sacrifice," Bella explained, drawing a map on the board. "So his students turned on him. They used their pens—the styluses that they would use to write notes with, on wax tablets—they used their pens to stab him to death."

It was such a grisly topic. Bella said it was all part of a war of learning, the decline of the empire apparently going hand-in-hand with a dumbing down of society. But Bree thought it was a little too violent for the day before Thanksgiving.

"Who knows if this Cassian guy's real," Bella continued. "So many of these martyrdoms are just stories. But it gives you an idea about the way classrooms were run back then. Cassian's students were just getting revenge for all of the times he'd beaten them. People thought that students wouldn't learn unless they had to."

Bree was about to ask Bella if any of this was actually going to be on the test, when she noticed a guy at the door. Like a student coming in late.

No, not _late_ —

Everything after that seemed to happen so slowly. Like time itself was broken down into small chunks, each minute taking twice as long as it should have.

But at the same, everything happened so quickly. There were jumps and starts.

It was like one of those hand-cranked black and white films, with jerks and pauses. Except that this was real life.

"Oh my God!"

Bree wasn't the one who'd cried out, because Bree's throat had closed up as soon as she saw the gun.

Just a handgun.

 _Just_ a handgun.

And Bree felt stupid for being so grateful that it wasn't a more dangerous weapon.

 _But at least he can't kill all of us_ , she thought _._

It took all of Bree's willpower to drag her eyes away from the gun, to look up at the guy who was holding it.

She recognized him, of course. _It was that weird guy._ The one who was always looking at everyone so strangely and saying the dumbest shit.

"James!" Bella exclaimed.

So that was his name.

Bree was still sitting. Frozen in her chair. Her fingers wrapped around the edge of her desk.

And she was in the chair closest to the door. She was the first one James'd shoot—

"James!" Bella cried again. "James, please! It's going to be okay."

But Bree didn't see how it could possibly be okay.

James was doing that wobbly-headed thing—that thing where he would look around at everyone and at no one in particular—and he was swinging the gun around.

"James please," Bella repeated, more pleadingly this time.

And God forgive her, but Bree couldn't help feeling a wave of relief when he turned to look at Bella, the gun following his line of sight.

Bree could hear Bella talking in the background, but Bree wasn't paying attention.

The door was right there. If Bree could just get to it—

Yet Bree was too afraid to move. She couldn't even bring herself to glance over her shoulder, to see what everyone else was doing. She hoped against hope that someone was texting for help. In another class, it would've been a problem—other TAs made the students put their phones away. But Bella never called anyone out for being on the phone, as long as they didn't interrupt class—

Shouldn't someone do something?

Couldn't one of the guys jump him?

The class was _full_ of guys! _What the fuck was wrong with them?_

Bree knew that it was selfish of her to think that, but she couldn't help it.

Besides, she was sure that any one of the guys in that class could take James. He was just so—

A blast rang out and Bree shot out of her seat, running full tilt for the door, which James had closed behind him. Bree twisted the handle, cursing when she realized that it was locked.

Another shot rang out before Bree, who was sobbing by that point, managed to unlock the door— _finally_ —and she wrenched it open.

Terrified though she was, Bree forced herself to glance back over her shoulder as she slipped into the hallway, afraid to find the gun aimed in her direction.

 _Blood_.

There was so much blood. On the wall and on the floor.

And Bella—

Bree's stomach lurched as she stumbled away. She flew down the hallway and down the stairs—

And crashed into a group of students milling in front of a bulletin board.

"What the fuck that?" one of them asked Bree, stopping her midflight.

"It sounded like a gun," another one said.

Bree didn't reply—she couldn't—but the look of horror on her face must have told the students what they needed to know.

She struggled against their hands as they pulled her inside another classroom— _What were they doing?! They needed to get out of the building!_ —but it was no good. They were stronger than she was.

"What did you see?" one of them asked as he and two other students began to barricade the door.

And at last Bree found her voice. "Miss Swan—my TA—Bella. She's dead!"

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A chill ran down Bella's spine.

This couldn't be happening. Not in _her_ classroom.

Not for nothing was Bella the daughter of a policeman. She recognized the gun in James' hand. More importantly, she realized that he wasn't holding it properly. He didn't even have the safety turned off.

"James!" Bella exclaimed, because it was the only thing that she could think of saying.

She had already dropped the chalk, and she'd unconsciously adopted that pose that people use to calm angry mobs and wild animals.

"James!" she cried again. "James, please! It's going to be okay."

She was lying.

Or rather, she was making a promise to herself. _It was going to be okay._

She was going _to make_ it be okay.

"James please," she said, assuming a more conciliatory tone.

And it must have worked, because James turned to look at her, swinging the gun in her direction.

Bella felt a measure of relief when James stepped towards her, moving to stand in the wide open space between the desks and the chalkboard. There was no cover for Bella to hide behind. And though a few of the students were out of James' range of sight, the rest of them were in plain view and still in the line of fire.

Fortunately, Bella could see some of her students tapping away at their phones under their desks.

"James, talk to me," she said, a bit too forcefully. Realizing that aggression might be a mistake, she softened her tone and started over. "I'm here for you. I want to listen to what you have to say."

She cursed herself for opting to go to that useless seminar on "Grading Objectively." She should have gone to the "Classroom Violence" seminar instead.

"They shouldn't let you be a teacher," James declared.

Well, it wasn't what she'd expected to hear. _Not that anything would've made that much sense._ But Bella figured that she could make it work.

"You're right," she admitted. "I'm not that good at this. I screw up all of the time."

She was willing to say anything as long as it would keep James' attention trained on her.

"You say things that you shouldn't say," James cried. He was nodding and shaking the gun at her in admonishment.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to—"

"Don't make excuses!" James cut her off. "This is all your fault!"

Bella fell silent. She didn't want to upset James any further. But she had to keep him from turning his attention on the students.

She thought about asking him to let everyone else go. Yet she was hoping that he would somehow forget that the other students were there.

"I read your paper," Bella said. "Your revision. And I realized that I messed up. I shouldn't have interfered. Your original paper was so insightful. I shouldn't have made you change it."

James came further into the room, closing the distance between the two of them. "That's right! It was better the way I planned it. You messed it up!"

Bella's gaze was trained on James. She didn't want to draw his attention to the other students by as much as a flicker of the eyes.

But she couldn't help noticing that three of her students looked like they were about to try something.

All three were seated in the last row of the classroom. With the haphazard arrangement of the desks, they wouldn't have a straight path to the front of the class.

And even if they did, there was no way that they could take James down without someone getting hurt.

Riley and Garrett were big guys, and Kate was small but—Bella knew—a fighter.

Nevertheless, it wasn't worth the risk.

Bella gave a tiny shake of her head. She was hoping that they'd catch on and stay in their seats.

Meanwhile, Bella was going to just going to keep James talking. If she could keep him distracted long enough, the police would show up and a negotiator would step in. No one had to get hurt.

Bella cleared her throat. "Dr. Eleazar agrees. I showed him both of your papers, and he sided with you."

"You shouldn't try to get people to change their minds. It's not right!"

"I know. I messed up."

"You shouldn't try to make them think that it's alright to be a prostitute."

In Bella's defense, she had never explicitly advocated for prostitution. But she didn't think that this was the time to quibble. "I'm sorry," she apologized again. "I've got no business teaching."

"I have to stop you." James turned the safety off.

 _Fuck_.

Bella's voice was cracking as she responded. "You _have_ stopped me. They won't let me teach anymore after they realize how much I upset you."

"It's too late!" James barked. "You've already done too much damage!" He shook the gun at her again.

"None of the students have been convinced, though," Bella tried to reassure him. "They know that everything I say is wrong."

Just then, the scraping of someone's desk across the floor sounded from the back of the classroom. It was just a fraction of an inch. A quiet noise. But loud enough.

And several things seemed to happen all at once.

The gun tipped towards the ceiling as James started to spin.

 _This is it_ , Bella thought. _James is going to start shooting_.

And there was no way that she was going to let him hurt any of them.

She reached for the gun and it went off—

At least, Bella thought that it went off. She felt the impact but, oddly, there was no pain.

And there was suddenly so much noise. Students were yelling, and there was such a distracting whirl of activity, the crash of desks being shoved out of the way, but Bella's focus had narrowed. All she could see was the gun.

She had grabbed a hold of James, wrapping her fingers around his, trying to pull the gun out of his hands.

But one of her arms wasn't working.

It was very important that she get the gun.

Her hand slid down, towards the barrel.

Then Bella was falling and the only thing holding her up was her grip on James. She knew that she couldn't let go.

But the gun suddenly went off again, this time barely missing Bella as she finally lost her grip on James.

"Are you alright?" a student was asking her just a beat later—what felt like just a beat later.

 _Vladimir_. His name was Vladimir. It always made Bella smile to say Vladimir's name. She secretly wanted to pronounce it with a Boris Karloff accent.

"I'm fine," she said, or she meant to say, but it didn't seem like he could hear her.

Vladimir had pulled off his jogging jacket and was holding it down on her shoulder.

 _I'm bleeding_ , Bella realized.

What a clever boy Vladimir was. _And not in the least bit vampiric in the midst of so much blood._

She wanted to ask about James and about the gun—she couldn't see what was happening—but everything was spinning. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

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Alice was fiddling with the radio.

"You're not nervous are you?" Jasper asked, catching her hand and pressing a kiss to her knuckles, all while keeping an eye on the road ahead.

They were on their way to Forks.

"Emmett's bringing Edward," Alice said by way of explanation. Pulling her hand out of Jasper's grip, she settled on a station but left the volume low.

"You're still angry at him?"

"Damn straight." Alice crossed her arms angrily over her chest. "I can't believe the way he treated Bella."

"It was pretty bad," Jasper conceded. "But he's your brother."

"If you had any idea what kind of shit he's pulled—"

"Just so long as you're not holding him responsible for something that someone else did."

"What does that mean?" Alice looked at Jasper.

He hesitated for a moment, but he wasn't the kind of guy to hold his tongue when he had an opinion. "Edward made it sound like there was something going on between you and Bella, too."

"I apologized to Bella," Alice said. "And she forgave me. Or, at least she said that she did." She fell silent for a minute. "And it's so unfair. I don't care about her and Edward, about whatever was going on between them. That has nothing to do with me. I don't believe that she was using me either. She wouldn't do that. But she still isn't answering my calls."

"Give it time."

Alice scoffed. "You may not have noticed this, but I'm not exactly the most patient of people."

Jasper chuckled. "Believe me, I've noticed."

Alice glanced at the radio as the music cut out. It was so hard to get reception out here—

But then she realized that a newscaster had come on: "…campus on lockdown. The police are going building by building…"

Alice turned the volume up.

"There's at least one confirmed victim. University officials are scheduled to make an announcement."

Jasper glanced at Alice, but she'd already pulled out her phone.

"Do you think—" he started.

"I'm calling her right now."

But Alice couldn't get through. Cursing, Alice left a voicemail and threw her phone back into her purse.

"It's the day before Thanksgiving," Jasper tried to reason. "Bella probably didn't even have class."

"She has discussion every Wednesday," Alice replied. "I don't think she would've cancelled."

Instead of arguing, Jasper just turned up the radio.

Unfortunately, the news wasn't reassuring. Vague reports were trickling in about the number of shooters and their possible motives.

There was at least one confirmed victim.

By the time that Jasper finally pulled into the driveway, Alice was about to lose her mind. The snow that had started falling a few miles outside of Forks didn't help matters, forcing Jasper to slow down.

Alice charged into the house.

"Where're mom and dad?" she asked, finding Emmett in the kitchen.

He shrugged. "Don't know. Me and Rosalie just got back. I took her—"

But Alice was already leaving the room. "Where's Edward?" she asked Rosalie, as the latter retrieved a cell phone from the floor, where it had apparently fallen. The news was playing on a television in the background, with more coverage of the campus shooting.

"How should I know?" Rosalie snorted. "But he left his crap all over the place."

A small piece of luggage was lying on its side next to the sofa, alongside a pair of dress shoes. _Edward's shoes._

A coat and what looked like slacks and a dress shirt had been tossed on a chair.

"Is that Edward's phone?" Alice asked, reaching for the cell.

"Haven't the slightest idea," Rosalie replied, handing it over.

"What's going on?" Emmett asked, having followed Alice into the room. Behind him, Jasper entered, loaded down with luggage.

Fortunately, Alice had long ago realized that being Edward's sister meant employing ninja-like stealth. She had surreptitiously obtained the password that he used to unlock his phone, watching him out of the corner of her eye at one of those happy hours at Newtons.

 _Not that she was planning on ever using her knowledge—_

Unless, Edward happened to turn back into an asshole, and she was forced to check his phone to find the individual responsible for his relapse into dickishness.

And now seemed like a perfect opportunity for Alice to make use of her knowledge.

Unlocking the phone, Alice gasped.

"Miss Swan—my TA—Bella. She's dead!"

The Youtube video started to replay as the phone slipped from Alice's fingers.

"Where's Edward?" Jasper asked.

"We don't know," Rosalie answered. "We just got back."

As Emmett and Rosalie started checking the rest of the house, calling Edward's name, Alice turned dumbly towards the back door.

"Alice, what're you—" Jasper paused as he ran up behind her.

They stopped and stood at the edge of the porch, staring down at the impressions in the snow.

Footprints clearly led from the house to the tree line. And interspersed here and there were larger impressions.

As though a person had fallen.

And there was blood in the snow.

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Bella was nervous. It would be the first time that she'd spoken to Alice.

Well, the first time since the incident.

But Alice had left five voicemails in the last seven hours and it would be pretty shitty of Bella to keep ignoring her now.

Alice was so torn up, too—Bella could hear it in her voice—Alice just wanted to know if Bella was alright.

And Bella _was_ alright. The bullet had "passed cleanly through her shoulder."

It sounded so clinical. So _normal_.

When it was anything but.

Everything was fucked up in a way it had never been before. And here was Alice, asking if Bella was alright.

She _was_ alright.

And yet she wasn't.

 _You can do this,_ she told herself, even though she was pretty sure it was a lie.

She dialed the phone.

"Bella?" Alice asked.

"I'm okay," Bella said without waiting for Alice to ask.

And she could hear Alice crying.

"I know there's this stupid video on Youtube," Bella said. "It was one of my students. She freaked out and—Well, she was wrong. Obviously, because I'm alright."

The line went quiet.

Bella was confused. "Alice? Are you okay?"

"This is Emmett," a new voice—a decidedly masculine voice—answered.

"Oh, is Alice alright?" Bella asked.

She knew that the video was probably upsetting—she'd yet to see it for herself—but she could only imagine how upsetting it might to think that someone you knew had been shot.

But Alice's reaction seemed a little over the top.

"Have you heard from Edward?" Emmett asked.

And Bella suddenly felt about ten times shittier, which was really saying something considering that she'd just been shot.

So many people had called to make sure that she was alright. Besides Alice, Jacob and Angela had called, and some other grad students, too. Her advisor and the history department secretary had also called, as well as two university officials. Even her crazy roommate had called.

But there'd been no call from Edward.

It was stupid of her to care about something like that at a time like this. That it would even matter.

 _It mattered._

"Uh—" Bella cleared her throat. "No. I haven't."

"He didn't call to make sure that you were alright?"

Even with all of the pain medication she was on, Bella couldn't help feeling a little annoyed at Emmett's line of questioning. _Was it really necessary to put her through this?_

"He didn't call."

"Do you think Edward would hurt himself?"

 _What?_

"Why would Edward hurt himself?" she asked.

"He's missing. We know that he watched the YouTube video about you—I'm glad you're okay, by the way, but we don't think Edward knows. Knows that you're okay, I mean. And we can't find him."

 _Like Edward gives a fuck if I'm okay_ , Bella thought.

She was the one in the fucking hospital, after all. And Edward had made it perfectly clear that he didn't care what happened to her.

"I'm sure he's fine," she said.

"It's been _hours_ and it's snowing."

"He probably just went for a walk—"

"There's blood."

 **AN: Last cliffhanger.**

 **I'm not sure about this chapter. I didn't spend as much time on it as I should have. I hope that it wasn't too awful.**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	34. Chapter 34

**Warning: Reference to suicide in this chapter. If you live in the USA and are in crisis, text "Go" to 741741 or call 1-800-273-8255. Other support services are available at www dot crisistextline dot org. Suicide dot org has resources for people living outside of the USA.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

" _Pretend I'm dead and say something nice_." – Petronius, translator unknown.

Chapter 34

It was almost midnight when they found Edward.

They followed his tracks in the snow as far as they could go. There wasn't that much blood—just a few smears—but it was alarming.

Unfortunately, once the tracks hit the tree line, the tree cover prevented any snow from hitting the ground. It was impossible to make out any marks in the hard rocks and dirt.

And there were just so many paths to choose from. No one could be sure which one Edward would have taken.

And since Edward was an adult, they couldn't report him missing. Not officially.

The police were also distracted by an accident on the highway. They were already understaffed because it was the day before Thanksgiving.

So Carlisle turned to a local tracker who happened to have a search-and-rescue dog.

The tracker wanted to stop when it started getting dark. He said that they were running the risk of someone else getting hurt.

Carlisle reminded the tracker that there was a debt to be paid: Carlisle had saved the life of the tracker's wife when she was injured in a climbing accident.

A few minutes before midnight, they found Edward at the bottom of a ravine. He was unconscious and clearly suffering from exposure as well as several broken bones. They air-lifted him to the hospital.

But it was readily apparent that Edward's physical condition wasn't the primary concern.

Edward woke up soon enough. He had a mild concussion, a broken leg, a few broken ribs and a sprained wrist. Otherwise, he was fine. _Physically_ at least.

Carlisle used his pull to ensure that Edward was monitored at all times. If a family member wasn't in the room with Edward, a member of the hospital staff was.

It wasn't easy to arrange an around-the-clock watch without calling in a psych consult, but Carlisle didn't want to go that far. He knew that it could hurt Edward's career if it got out that he'd been put on a suicide watch.

Carlisle was taking a chance—and it wasn't the first time that he'd taken a gamble like this. All of those years ago, when Edward was a teenager, Carlisle had been so desperate for Edward to make a commitment to therapy that he'd promised the boy a car if he really tried. And at first, it seemed to work. Edward appeared to be doing better. But it wasn't long before Carlisle figured out that it was all a sham. That Edward was faking his recovery.

Carlisle had made his son a promise, though, and he stuck to it. Edward got his car and the therapy ended before it could really do Edward any good.

Oh, Edward still got good grades. He avoided arrests.

But he would stay out till all hours. He was a complete and unmitigated asshole in so many ways. The more Carlisle plead with Edward to see reason, the more Carlisle tried to get Edward to face reality, the worst he got.

And behind all of Edward's anger, Carlisle could sense a kind of desperation. A compulsion for self-destruction that Carlisle was afraid to push.

Now, over a decade later, Carlisle felt like they were stuck back where they had started.

And they had been so close.

After everything that Edward had put them through, after everything that he had done to Emmett—oh, Carlisle knew about sleeping with Emmett's girlfriends—after all of that, Edward had the temerity to bring _that_ woman home.

Carlisle and Esme just about gave up on Edward after that.

But then Alice told them about Bella.

Somehow, the young woman had managed to reconnect with Alice—using one of those computer apps—and it was such a pleasant surprise. It was so nice to think that they might get a chance to fix the mistake they'd made all of those years ago, ignoring the girl. Choosing Edward over her.

And then, to Carlisle and Esme's surprise, Alice said that Bella was hanging out with Edward.

It made no sense at all. Absolutely no sense whatsoever. Bella and Edward had always despised one another. And that was _before_ the fallout with Bella's mother.

Preoccupied though he was by his work at the hospital, Carlisle had seen enough to know how much the two teenagers hated one another.

Carlisle had always blamed Edward. Bella seemed like such a sweet creature. If anyone was at fault, Carlisle was sure it had to be Edward.

Carlisle tried to talk to his son about it, but he got shot down every time.

And then, Bella's father had his accident.

Carlisle and Esme told Edward that Bella was going to be living with them for a while. They warned him to be on his best behavior. Edward replied with his typical, surly bullshit, rolling his eyes and snapping that he wasn't a complete dickhead. And it would seem that he was telling the truth, because he left Bella alone.

But when her mother showed up, it was a different story.

"You can't let Bella go home with her," Edward told them.

Edward wouldn't say why he felt like that, though. And while Carlisle harbored his own doubts—he didn't like the way the woman had looked at him or his sons—it wasn't his place to keep a girl from her mother.

So Esme and Carlisle let Bella go.

Then the stories started.

Esme confronted Bella's mother about the stories. "Oh, you can't believe these hicks," Renee said. "They're a bunch of liars. I know that you know that."

Esme knew the way that small towns worked. She knew that Forks could be a nasty, insidious place.

Still.

"I don't know what to do," Esme complained to Carlisle.

"Maybe I could talk to Charlie," Carlisle offered.

"He's not up for it. You said he wasn't up for it."

"He isn't."

They didn't know what to do. So they did nothing.

Then Edward's name entered into the mix. Edward and some other boys. All of them just teenagers. Too young for this kind of shit.

No fucking way were Esme and Carlisle going to sit back and—

But then Renee was gone. Charlie's deputies had run her out of town.

A few days later, Esme was standing in Bella's kitchen, begging the girl to move back in with the Cullens. Esme did this, even knowing how much it might hurt Edward.

When Bella refused, however, Esme didn't push too hard. Esme told herself that the teenagers shouldn't be force to face one another. And Carlisle agreed.

To assuage her conscience, Esme visited Bella at least once a week, checking to make sure that everything was alright. It was obvious the girl was pushing her away, though. A few times, Esme suspected Bella of pretending that she wasn't at home when Esme knocked on her door.

At first, Bella's efforts to avoid Esme inspired the woman to redouble her efforts. She wasn't going to let Bella slip through the cracks.

But the girl was still on track for graduating with honors. Bella was going to go to college. She seemed to have her life together.

So, after discussing it with Carlisle, Esme decided to back off. Maybe it was better to let the girl stand on her own, rather than have her dig in her heels.

They had always pushed Edward—and look how horribly that had gone.

They realized how wrong they were when Bella was attacked in Port Angeles.

It had not escaped Carlisle's notice that Edward had called him for a ride from Port Angeles the same night that Bella was reportedly assaulted there. Of course, Edward wasn't named as one of the assailants. But Carlisle was half-afraid that loyalty to the Cullens was the only reason that Bella didn't name Edward as one of her attackers.

"You know that you need a woman's consent, right?" Carlisle asked.

Edward rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Of course. Why are you asking?"

"She has to _say_ it. Out loud."

"Jesus, I know that."

"She has to explicitly say the words 'I want to have sex with you,'" Carlisle explained.

"Oh my God, do you want me to get her to sign a permission slip?"

"Do you have a problem with that?"

Edward stared at Carlisle for a minute. "No," he huffed. "I don't."

"She can't be drunk or high or impaired in any way."

"Can _I_ be?"

"This isn't a joke. This is serious."

Edward sighed. "I get it. I would never do something like that."

"Even if you _are_ drunk? Or high?"

"I don't really do that stuff."

"Really?" Carlisle was pretty sure that Edward was telling the truth, but Carlisle wanted him to confirm it.

"Really."

Carlisle paused. "That night in Port Angeles, with Bella—"

"Those assholes should be getting jail time," Edward hissed. "This good old boy, community service, slap on the wrist crap is bullshit."

The vehemence of Edward's reply set Carlisle's conscience to peace. At least as far as Edward was concerned.

"We've got to get the girl to come and live with us," Esme declared.

"You can't make Bella do anything against her will," Carlisle pointed out.

"I'll call social services then! The girl shouldn't be living on her own!"

"We're not approved as a foster family. Do you know how long that process takes? And Bella's age means that she wouldn't be placed with anyone else. At best, she'd be moved out of Forks and put into a group home. Do you know how bad some of those places are? At least, here she's under our eye."

"Under our eye?!" Esme snapped. "Under our eye? Was she under our eye when she was attacked in Port Angeles?"

"We'll speak to the deputies. We'll make sure someone's keeping a watch on her."

"And if she decides to go to Port Angeles again?"

"She's eighteen."

It was a few days before Esme started speaking to Carlisle again.

In Carlisle's defense, he had spent time in the foster system himself. He knew what a fucking nightmare it could be. What it could do to a person.

He didn't want that to happen to Bella.

So he talked to the deputies about keeping a watch on her, and Esme started going around Bella's house again. Bella still wouldn't talk to her, but there were no more incidents.

That spring, Esme and Carlisle went to graduation, hoping to see Bella walk across the stage with Alice, but Bella skipped the event.

Charlie sold the house and Bella left for college.

Esme and Carlisle missed her, but they were happy thinking that she'd moved on.

And seeing her so many years later at Alice's housewarming party—and with Edward, no less—it was surreal, to say the least.

Esme and Carlisle actually started to get their hopes up.

Until the dinner party.

"It's that woman's fault," Esme fumed. "Renee—that _bitch_ —I just know it."

"You actually think that Edward's telling the truth?" Carlisle asked. It sickened him to think that Bella could really be selling herself.

"I don't know," Esme cried. "Edward has said so many wild things over the years. The way he used to accuse of us abandoning him. He's so vicious sometimes. But—" she breathed.

"What?"

"Bella was vicious, too, sometimes. Sometimes, she would hurt him, solely for the pleasure of it. I saw her."

Carlisle shook his head.

"You were never there," Esme reminded him. "Edward got in plenty of digs, alright, but you never saw Bella. You thought she was so sweet. She had a mean streak."

"That was then. They're adults now."

"And yet here we are, right back where we were ten years ago."

Well, it wasn't exactly the same place. But close enough.

Standing in Edward's hospital room, Carlisle told himself that Edward was alive. That was what mattered.

Even though he had tried to kill himself—

 _Maybe_.

And he wasn't talking. Not to any of his family members at least.

He had answered a few questions from hospital staff. Enough to keep them from calling in a psych consult.

Edward wasn't stupid. If he was really planning to hurt himself again, he couldn't afford for them to put him on a suicide watch.

Fortunately, Carlisle wasn't exactly stupid either. And he made sure that Edward was under close observation.

They made sure that Edward knew about Bella. That he knew that was alright. They played a few news reports that pointed out how the Youtube video had been mistaken.

Edward remained unmoved.

He ignored their efforts to engage his attention, staring woodenly in front of him.

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"Did Edward ever say anything to you about hurting himself?" Alice asked, having called—again—because Bella refused to see her.

"Of course he didn't," Bella replied.

She was getting tired of this. Edward was alright. They had found him. Yeah, he had some broken bones, but he'd be alright.

Meanwhile, Bella had an injury of her own—a bullet wound, for God's sake—not to mention the gaping hole in her chest from when Edward had ripped out her heart.

"Are you sure?" Alice pressed.

"He didn't say anything to me," Bella insisted.

This was stupid. Edward was going to be just fine.

Bella's life, however, looked like it was just about to get much, much worse.

Apparently, more than a few people seemed to think that the shooting was her fault. They thought that Bella should've picked up on the warning signs and taken action.

 _Didn't she know that James was unstable?_

Well, she knew that he was a trifle odd but—

 _Why didn't she notify the crisis center?_

She had "problem" students every semester. She had no reason to believe that James was violent.

 _Some of the other students had reported that James had always struck them as a little creepy. Why didn't Bella notice? If James was making the other students uncomfortable, then it was her job to address the situation._

Bella had been doing her best.

 _Her best? Her 'best' was ignoring a student in crisis until he showed up in class with a gun?_

She had tried to talk him down.

 _A day late and a dollar short, wasn't it?_

The school didn't really give TAs that many resources—

 _She had a handbook, didn't she? She had the number for the crisis center, didn't she?_

Well, yeah, but TAs just had so much on their plates.

 _Other TAs managed to submit reports to the crisis center. Twenty reports had already been filed that year._

So it was starting to look like it really was Bella's fault, after all.

Some of the parents were talking about lawsuits. If they actually sued, the school was probably going to throw Bella to the wolves.

And maybe she deserved it. Maybe it _was_ her fault for not being more proactive about James.

Bella was fucking lucky that she was the only one who'd been hurt. She never should've put her students in that situation.

So Bella had enough on her plate. She didn't have the energy to play any of the Cullens' games.

Not now.

"I really wish you'd come see him," Alice said.

There was no way in hell that Bella was going to put herself through that. "Why would he want to see me?"

"I think he _needs_ to see you. He won't talk to us. Maybe he'll talk to you."

"Bullshit."

"Well, he's obviously not being very rational right now."

"He had an accident," Bella argued. "You said that he had a concussion. I'm sure that he just needs some time."

Didn't Alice realize what it would do to Bella to face Edward? To hear him tell her—one more time—just how little he thought of her?

"It was just a _mild_ concussion. It's been _days_. If there's any compassion in you at all for him—"

"He threw _me_ out, Alice," Bella reminded her. _What the fuck was wrong with Alice? How could she possibly think that this was alright?_

"So that's it? You're done with him?"

"He made it pretty clear that _he's_ done with _me._ "

"Which is why he threw himself off of a mountain when he thought that you were dead," Alice retorted.

Bella swallowed. "You really think that he was trying to hurt himself?"

"He told the doctor that he just slipped but, yeah, I think he did it on purpose. And even if he didn't, even if he didn't _throw_ himself off that cliff, what the fuck was he doing out there? He'd already hurt himself. He was already exhausted. And he went out again, _after he found out that you were dead_."

"But I wasn't dead."

"He didn't know that! And he went out again! Even if he slipped, even if it was a so-called _accident_ , he was trying to hurt himself. Because _he thought that you were dead_."

"I'm sure that isn't what happened," Bella argued.

It didn't make sense. Why would Edward do that?

"I know that I have no right to ask this, but I'm asking you as a friend," Alice said. "If my friendship ever meant anything to you at all, please come."

"You were a shitty friend," Bella snapped.

There was a moment of silence.

"So that's it?" Alice asked. "You won't come?"

"Yeah, that's it," Bella said, and hung up, not wanting to drag it out any longer.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

But Bella was lying. That _wasn't_ it. Not by a longshot.

She couldn't get Edward out of her head.

Bella couldn't believe the temerity of Alice in asking for help like that.

Edward had humiliated Bella in the most disgusting way. And she was just supposed to go running back to him?! She was just supposed to forget about what he had done to her in that bathroom? She was just supposed to show her face to his family—the same family that he humiliated her in front of?

Was he really such a waste of space that he couldn't feel good about himself unless he was shitting on someone else? Was Bella really supposed to be his punching bag?

Well fuck that, because Bella had spent enough time being used. She was done.

 _So why was she having second thoughts?_

She was brainwashed! _That was all it was_. Society had brainwashed women into believing that they had to sacrifice themselves for others.

 _Sacrifice and sacrifice and sacrifice until there was nothing left._

Well, Bella wasn't a fucking sheep. And she didn't give a fuck about "doing the right thing."

She wasn't going to go hold Edward's hand just because—

But if Edward was really as bad as Alice said—

And if it was because of Bella—

 _Well, fuck him!_ He was the one who'd thrown their relationship away.

And yet.

And yet.

Could Bella really have that on her conscience? Could she really turn away from someone in need?

 _But none of what Alice said was true_. Edward couldn't possibly have tried to hurt himself.

And if he did, it was his choice. It had nothing to do with Bella.

She followed the Greco-Romans on the subject of suicide: A person had a right to kill himself. Suicide could in fact be a rational decision. When Seneca killed himself—

 _It wasn't the same thing._

If it was true that Edward had intentionally hurt himself, if he had acted on the mistaken belief that Bella was dead—

Again, that didn't make any sense. Bella was the one in need, not Edward.

Except that he was still in the hospital. Apparently, Carlisle had pulled some strings to get Edward put in traction even though it wasn't really necessary. All so that Carlisle could keep Edward under watch.

It didn't make any sense.

But could Bella really afford to take the risk that Alice was wrong?

If Bella saw a dog lying injured on the side of the road, she would stop and help it. A _dog_. How could she ignore a person in pain? As much as Edward had hurt Bella, if Alice was right, then he deserved some compassion, didn't he?

Or did he?

Of course he did.

Bella wasn't the solution, though.

No matter what Alice said.

 _Unless—_

If there was something that Bella could do to help, it was incumbent upon her to try.

And yet.

And yet.

Unable to take it any longer, Bella surrendered herself to the fates. Grabbing her copy of Seneca's letters from her bookshelf, she opened to a passage at random: " _The person you're engaging in word-play with is in fear—go to his aid."_

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 _Bella would know_ , Edward thought.

It was a Greek myth so of course Bella would know. It was all about some guy whose wife had died.

The guy in question—he was a musician—he was all cut up about his wife's death. He was miserable. And finally, unable to take it anymore, he went down to the Underworld to get his wife back.

Crazy as that sounds, it worked. This guy was such a good musician that he entertained the socks off of everyone in the Underworld, even the rulers.

So they said, _Okay, you can have your wife back. Just go back to the land of the living, and she'll follow you. But don't turn around. Keep to the path and don't turn around until you're back in the land of the living, safe and sound._

The guy agreed, and off he went, so anxious to set his eyes on his wife again. He rushed back to the land of the living, keeping to the path and keeping his eyes straight ahead.

Until the last moment, when he couldn't take it anymore.

He couldn't wait. It was too much to ask of him.

He took just one quick glance. That was it. Just a flicker out of the corner of his eye.

It was enough to ruin the deal, though.

His wife—whatever her name was—she was gone. He got one brief glimpse of her shadow before she was snatched back to the Underworld.

Bella would know the guy's name. And she'd know the rest of the story, if there was any. Edward had always wondered if the lovers were ever reunited after death. It didn't seem right—the way the story just ended like that.

Here was this guy with his heart-set on getting back the woman he loved, with his eyes trained on the goal, only to have it snatched of his fingers.

Edward knew what that felt like. He had been chasing Bella that day in the woods when he fell.

He knew that everyone thought that he had hurt himself on purpose, but that wasn't true. It was an accident.

Why would he intentionally hurt himself when he was so close to catching Bella?

Not that he honestly thought that it was Bella he'd been following. He wasn't crazy. He knew she wasn't really in those woods with him.

It was just a deer.

Even at the time, he knew it was just a deer—a flash of brown and the crashing noise through the trees.

And Bella was dead.

So it couldn't be her.

 _Unless—_

Edward didn't believe in signs, but maybe it was a sign. He didn't believe in the supernatural, but maybe it was Bella's way of saying goodbye.

He knew it couldn't possibly be her.

Because she was dead.

But that meant she was gone. Gone forever.

Unless this really was a sign and Edward could catch her.

He knew it was crazy. He knew it was wrong.

He knew that he was probably exhausted. He'd been out for hours. The sun had already set. He was freezing. He couldn't feel his fingers and his feet were numb. He had fallen a few more times.

He knew that he was probably cracking up.

He knew that Bella was dead.

And yet, there was that scrap of brown again, the crash through the underbrush just ahead. If it really was a deer, what was it doing hanging around like this? It could've gotten away five times already.

It wasn't Bella. He knew it wasn't.

And yet he was so close. He was right behind her. If he could just catch up.

He had no recollection of falling. He didn't remember how he tripped over that last root. He didn't recall hitting his head against a tree or tumbling down a slope. He didn't remember landing at the bottom with his leg twisted under his body. He didn't remember any of it.

But he remembered that she was dead.

And while Edward's accident wasn't intentional, waking up in that hospital room—realizing that he wasn't dead—was one of the worst experiences of his life.

 _Bella was dead._

There was a blackness, a swirling blackness inside of him.

 _Bella was dead._

He couldn't remember ever feeling like this.

 _Because Bella was dead_.

He couldn't breathe. His body was numb because of the medication, and yet there was a tearing agony inside of him.

He didn't know how he was supposed to make it.

 _And then—_

 _And then Bella_ wasn't _dead._

They kept saying that she was alive. They even showed him news reports to prove it.

And Edward was ecstatic. He was sick with joy.

Until he realized what it meant.

He couldn't go back to Bella now. Not like this.

He had always been a fuck up. But now he was good and thoroughly broken.

He was a fruit cake. A basket case. A loon. A coward. Every self-denigrating term that he could come up with—that was him.

Because instead of finding a ride to Seattle, instead of trying to call her, instead of making sure that she was alright, Edward had gone tearing off into the woods.

And he could lie about it all he wanted, but the truth is, he _had_ been trying to hurt himself. He knew that he had no business being out there. It was too cold. It was too late. He was too tired. He had already injured himself.

And if that deer hadn't distracted him, he might've found himself an overlook and thrown himself off of it.

 _On purpose._

Probably.

Perhaps.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But it was a _possibility_. So much so, that Edward's hands would still shake now and then, just thinking about it.

He knew that his family was suspicious about his accident. It hadn't escaped his attention that he was basically on a suicide watch. And he knew that his leg didn't really require traction.

But Edward wasn't ready to deal with his family just yet. He wasn't ready to deal with the arguments.

He didn't have the energy to pretend. He'd have to tell the truth about all of the times he had thought about hurting himself.

And they would freak the fuck out.

So Edward did what he had to do. He talked to the hospital staff. He talked to his supervisor.

He ignored his family.

He told himself that if he could just get a few days, just get a handle on this, he could pull himself together. He could lie to them and make it convincing.

And when Edward could bear to think about it, he would let himself contemplate the prospect of facing Bella again. He knew that he would have to tell her the truth. He couldn't lie to her.

He would tell her about the depression. About everything.

He would beg her on his hands and knees to take him back. Even though he knew that she deserved better than some suicidal whack job.

And if she didn't want him, well, he would just make sure that she was alright. He would make sure that all of her father's hospital bills were paid off. That she wasn't having trouble paying any of her school bills or her rent.

He had called the hospital where she was treated. He knew that she would recover, physically at least.

He had called the university. He had reamed some minor flunky out for not doing a better job of screening the students or identifying potential problems among the students who were already enrolled.

Edward had confirmed that the asshole responsible for putting Bella in the hospital was in jail, and that he would be remaining there until the trial.

But he still hadn't called Bella. He didn't have the guts to talk to her.

As soon as they let him out of the hospital, he was going to find Bella. And he was terrified of what would happen then.

So even though Edward knew that he didn't require traction, he put up with the charade, and stayed in—

"You son-of-a-bitch."

Edward's eyes snapped open.

Bella was standing at the foot of his bed, glaring at him.

To say that Bella was furious would be an understatement. She had endured an excruciating awkward three hour car ride with Carlisle to the hospital. Not that Carlisle had done anything untoward. He had been the very embodiment of gentility, inquiring into her health and well-being—expressing suitably sympathetic sentiments upon hearing that she was still on medical leave from the university and never once mentioning any issues related to the subject of "prostitution"—all while thanking her several times for agreeing to see his son, and steadfastly avoiding any references to the dreaded dinner party.

Part of Bella wished that they could just get it over with, bring all of the vulgar little details out into the open, expose everything to the hideous light of day. But she couldn't bear the thought of broaching the subject herself—she just couldn't—so instead, she'd offered stilted answers to Carlisle's questions, then asked her own nonsensical questions about his work at the hospital and Esme, before they both gave up and just stopped talking.

After they reached the hospital, Bella suffered a minor panic attack.

"I can't," she said. "I just can't." She was shaking her head 'no,' and staring at the elevator like it was going to carry her into the depths of hell.

"You can't?" Carlisle asked stupidly, smiling manically, terrified that she was going to back out of seeing Edward.

"I can't face them."

 _Them_ , not _him_. Carlisle relaxed a little. "Do you want me to clear the room? I'll make sure that no one is around."

Bella nodded.

"Ok," he said. "I'll call."

And he did, with Bella standing right next to him, Carlisle called Alice and told her to clear everyone out of the way. Alice tried to argue with him, and Carlisle had to drop his voice to tell her to just do it already, his eye on Bella the whole time in case she tried to run.

"All clear," he said, ending the call and smiling at Bella again. "Shall we go up?" He pressed the button for the elevator again.

Bella knew that she sounded like a psychopath, asking Carlisle to make sure that she didn't have to face any of the other Cullens. But she didn't want to see them.

She _couldn't_ see them.

 _Hell, she didn't want to see Edward_.

Yet, here she was, standing in his hospital room, looking right at him.

"You're an asshole," Bella said.

"You're real," Edward breathed.

"Of course I'm real," Bella snapped, angry because it scared the ever-loving-fuck out of her that he would say something like that. _It broke her heart_. So naturally, irrationally, she was furious. "What did you expect?"

"I'm just surprised to see you here," Edward told her, running his eyes over her form, drinking her in.

She looked like crap. Her hair was a tangled mess, her clothes were rumpled and she looked as if she hadn't slept for days, her skin sallow and her eyes bloodshot. And her arm was in a sling. She looked like crap. And the sight of her there, in his room, was fucking wonderful.

"Well now that you're talking, I can leave. I knew your sister was lying about that." Bella turned to go.

"Wait!" Edward sat up quickly, inadvertently jerking his leg and hissing in pain.

"What for? So you can call me a 'whore' again?" Bella stepped closer to the head of the bed, looking for all the world as though she wanted to slap him.

"No. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry for that."

"Yeah, you're real sorry." Bella sneered at his leg. "Hurting yourself like that. I warned Carlisle that I wasn't going to be nice to you. I don't feel bad for you. If you think that you can just hurt yourself like this, and I'll come running, you can forget it."

"I don't expect you to."

"Yeah well good," Bella said. "Because you don't deserve shit from me."

And she meant it.

But then Bella's resolve cracked. Because he looked like shit. His hair was completely fucked up. His skin was greasy and sallow. He looked like he hadn't slept for days. His eyes were bloodshot. His leg was in traction and his arm was in a sling. He looked like crap. And he looked so fucking, fucking good.

Bella's one good hand forming a fist, her voice wavering, she asked him, because she had to know: "How fucking dare you?"

Edward wasn't sure if she meant the way that he'd hurt her or the way he'd hurt himself. "It was an accident." His answer applied to both situations, though it was kind of a lie either way, wasn't it? Because he knew what he was doing.

" _Fuck_ you. They think that you tried to kill yourself. For _me_. How could you do that? As if I don't already feel guilty enough for—for everything that happened. How could you put something like that on me?"

Edward shook his head. "It wasn't your fault."

"You're damn right it isn't. You threw me out of your apartment. You didn't even ask me what happened or why I did it. You fucking _humiliated_ me." Bella covered her face with her good hand.

"What I did to you—there's no excuse. My family hates me. They fucking hate me for what I did to you. You don't have to feel humiliated about anything they saw or heard."

Bella snorted, looking at him again, her eyes swimming with tears. "They don't hate you. Alice was on my phone begging me to come here. Carlisle drove all of the way to Seattle to get me. Would they do that if they hated you?"

"The only reason Alice is speaking to me is because of the accident."

" _Accident?_ I told her she was full of shit. She said that—" Bella grimaced, her voice breaking again. "You need to explain it to them." Her eyes dropped. "It's not fair to me. How much do I have to pay for what I did to you? Every time she called me, it was like a fucking knife." Bella thumped her chest. "I feel like someone's stabbing me. And I'm _sorry_. I told you that night that I was sorry. And I am. You can think what you want. You can think that I just regret that I was caught—but I was going to tell you the truth."

Bella regained some of her composure, glaring at him again. "Of _course_ I was going to tell you. How could I keep something like that a secret? Tanya was going to tell you no matter what. The fact that you'd think that I was trying to keep it a secret—how fucking stupid are you?"

"I'm sorry," Edward repeated dumbly. He didn't know what to say. How could he possibly explain what he had done?

"I love you," Edward said, and realized almost immediately that it was the wrong thing to say.

Bella was backing away from his bed, a look of horror on her face, so he reached for her good hand and pulled her closer.

"I'm sorry, I know it's not what you want to hear, but I love you. Or at least, I think I'm in love with you," Edward clarified, because he didn't want to lie. Not now. "Hearing Tanya tell me that—" He had to clear his voice. "I lost it. I wasn't thinking straight. I felt like the two of you were just toying with me. There I was—in love with you—and then I found out that all along you were just playing with me."

"That wasn't what happened," Bella interrupted, pulling her hand out of his, but not retreating.

She wasn't really buying this—she didn't think that he could possibly be in love with her—but she wasn't going to just stand there and let him blame her for all of this again. Make himself out to be the victim.

"In the beginning, yeah, I was trying to use you. But it wasn't working. I was going to give up, and then you kept—" Bella stopped. "I was _so_ angry at you. I _know_ it wasn't really your fault. I know that you didn't know what was going on. And I know that you didn't really do all of those things that I had blaming you for all of those years—Port Angeles. My mother. I was just so used to hating you. I thought that you deserved it, no matter what happened.

"Even when I knew the truth about my mother and Port Angeles, I figured that it didn't matter. That you and Tanya had this thing. You told me that you did this sort of thing all of the time. She said it was just a game."

Bella shook her head. "But something happened. I cared about you. Really cared. You said that you wanted to try, and I did too. And then," Bella's face hardened as she snapped her fingers, "just like that, you turned on me."

She wiped another tear away. "You claim that you cared about me. That you _still_ care about me. How could you? How could you care about me and do that?"

Edward had been holding his tongue, letting her have her say, but he couldn't stay quiet any longer. "It made more sense to believe that you were playing me then that you really cared."

Bella laughed angrily. "Because I'm a whore, and the daughter of—"

"Because I'm a piece of shit," Edward interrupted, so fucking, fucking—unfairly—angry at her for not getting this, for making him say it out loud. "Because why the fuck would someone like you be interested in me?"

"Someone like me?" Bella shook her head. "You expect me to believe that?"

"I don't deserve you. I deserve someone sick and twisted, like Tanya. Not someone like you, who has nothing to do with that world."

"Well that's obviously not true because I let her pay me to fuck you." Bella started laughing again. "And do you know how much I'm worth? Fifty cents. That's how much she paid me in the end. It's a good thing my father's dead"—and the tears were back, because how the hell could Bella say something like that?—"I wouldn't have been able to pay for his treatment after all."

"She fucking what?!" Edward roared.

Bella shrugged. "It doesn't matter. What'd you say I was? A 'lousy lay'? Isn't that what you called me?"

"It wasn't true," Edward said, swallowing hard. "I was just trying to hurt you."

"It worked. And I wasn't even that surprised. I mean, how could you want me? After everything you'd told me—all of your bragging about your so-called corruption—how could someone like me actually keep you interested?"

Then Edward was the one laughing, a dark, mean laugh. "You don't really know me. You don't know a _damn_ thing about me. That day that Alice called me about taking the two of you out—when I took you to the Space Needle—do you know what I was doing when she called? Trying to figure out how hard I had to throw the chair against the window in the break room at work."

Bella looked at him, confused. "What for?"

"So I could throw myself out the window," Edward snapped. "What do you think?"

It took Edward a few seconds to realize what he'd admitted. He started to feel queasy.

Bella certainly felt like she was wanted to throw up. "What? How could you— Why would you do something like that?"

Edward looked away. He didn't want to face her. Not now. He was so fucking, fucking ashamed.

But then her hand was on his cheek and her face was only a few inches away from his. She was blinking rapidly, trying to keep the tears from falling. "Tell me," Bella said softly. "Please tell me."

God, he wanted nothing more than to hold his peace, to stay silent. But he couldn't refuse her. "I think about it sometimes." He hated the way that his voice was shaking, and he immediately tried to take the words back. "It's not really serious. And it wasn't like I was thinking about it when—" _Fuck_. "When I was with you. I'd stopped thinking about it, I mean."

"Were you trying to hurt yourself in the woods?"

Edward shrugged.

"Why?" she asked, not willing to let it go.

The tears were falling from Bella's eyes now and hitting Edward's cheeks, so that their tears were mingling, because he was crying ( _God_ , he hated himself for that).

"I don't understand," she said.

 _What part of this wasn't making sense to her?_ "I heard that you were dead." Just saying the words was enough to summon up that awful, leaden feeling inside of him.

 _He wasn't really going to kill himself, was he?_

No.

 _Maybe._

He didn't know.

But his words just made Bella angry all over again. "I'm not that important. But even assuming that I am, you just believed that stupid girl? You're not that dumb. Why would you do something like that?"

Edward shrugged once more, and Bella wanted to shake him. _Because here she was, at the hospital, for him, and he was telling her that he was just going to give up?_

"If you're telling the truth, why're you just lying in this hospital room?" she asked. "Why didn't you try to call me after they told you that I was alive?"

"Because you deserve better than me," Edward whispered.

"Stop saying that!" Bella cried, pulling away. "All I wanted was for you to call me. I was sitting in that hospital with a bullet in my arm, thinking to myself, 'Maybe Edward will call, just to make sure that I'm okay.' Do you know how much I hated myself for thinking that? For _wishing_ that you'd care enough to call."

But hearing Bella talk about what she'd gone through just made Edward feel even worse. She'd suffered so much—and all Edward could think about was himself.

"Why do you think that I decided to stay away from you?" Edward asked hoarsely. "Because I'm not even good enough to pick up a fucking phone."

"So that's it? You're just going to sit in this hospital, not talking to anyone? And what? The minute you're out, you're going to try to—" Bella's voice broke. "To hurt yourself?"

Edward was so confused. "No." He wasn't—

"Bullshit."

And then he was the one who was angry. She was just piling on him. Where was the fucking milk of human compassion? Where was the sympathy?

Was there not even a drop of consideration in her breast for a fellow human in need?

"What about your hero?" he asked. "Your beloved Seneca? He killed himself, didn't he? Who the hell are you to stand there, judging me?"

"I'm not judging you! I don't want you to leave me, goddammit!"

"Well then I won't," Edward told her, his angry tone matching hers.

"How can you say that?"

He blinked. "Because it's the truth."

"You can't just say that. You can't just promise me that. That's not how that works."

"I know that. I know. I was trying—even before Alice called. I mean that I was trying to get recover from my addiction."

"But you're depressed," Bella said. "It's not just an addiction. You're depressed. You know that right?"

"Of course, I know that. I'm not stupid."

"So you have to do something about it."

"I am."

"What?"

Edward shook his head. "I don't know."

"You should see a counselor."

"I fucking hate counselors."

"I don't fucking care."

"Well, if I have to see one, so do you."

Bella's jaw dropped. "Me?"

"You just went through a traumatic event at the school. And your father just died. And—" Edward hesitated. "I was worried about you. Even before your father died. About some things you did."

Bella stuck up her jaw. "What do you mean?"

"There was that time we were having sex and you just—you checked out. You weren't there."

"That didn't mean anything."

"Then there's what happened at Port Angeles. And your mother. And Tanya. Don't tell me that everything's normal, that everything's all fine, because I know you're lying. I love you. Please. I'll see a counselor, but I want you to go to one too."

"This is fucked up. It's not right. You can't _make_ someone get therapy. It won't work."

" _Please_."

Bella looked at him. What he was asking her to do was so much. Not just giving him another chance—though that was huge enough—but going to see someone. _Talking_ to some stranger about everything that had happened, everything she'd done. Her secrets. Her mistakes. She was fucking terrified.

And she was right—it wouldn't work unless she was serious.

But could she refuse? Could she just walk out of that hospital room?

When he was right there, begging her, telling her that he would get help if she would do the same?

 _Fuck it_ , Bella cursed to herself.

 _Fuck it all to hell._

She nodded.

Edward smiled at her like he had won the fucking lottery.

To which Bella replied by rolling her eyes.

It wasn't perfect. It wasn't ideal. But for now, it was enough.

 **AN:**

" _ **The person you're engaging in word-play with is in fear—go to his aid."**_ **– Seneca the Younger, Letter XLVIII translated by Robin Campbell**

 **I want to reply to a Guest reviewer who left a very thoughtful and nicely worded comment on the last chapter. (That's not sarcasm. Apparently, I often come off as sarcastic when I'm trying to be sincere. I appreciate the way the comment was worded and it brought up a legitimate issue.)**

 **This reviewer thought it was insensitive of me to include a school shooting in light of everything that's going on in America right now. If readers saw this scene as just another ploy to put Bella through hell, I understand the concern. If you thought that I was just using this as a plot device, with no concern for the real world consequences, then I understand the concern. Maybe you think that the gun violence issue is too huge to operate as a subplot.**

 **But gun violence** _ **is**_ **a subplot in America right now. It's completely normalized and completely ignored.**

 **I taught high school and I had to do lockdown drills in case a shooter showed up. I've heard political pundits say that teachers should start carrying guns. If that's the case, I quit. Full stop. I won't teach if I have to carry a gun. When I was a TA, I told my professor that I thought that his insensitive way of teaching religious issues was going to get me shot (I was 100% serious, but I put it more tactfully than that). His response: "** _ **They**_ **(the pissed off student shooter)** _ **shouldn't do that**_ **(shoot me)** _ **."**_ **I don't think I have to spell out why that's unacceptable. As I think that I mentioned, James is based on a real student of mine. To my knowledge, he has never done anything violent. But I was a little afraid of him. Teachers should be given better resources to handle problems like that. I'm going to continue to talk about Bella's failures with regard to James. I certainly think that I failed with regard to the student he's based on. I should've asked around. Made sure everything was alright. I hate to think that he's going to one day become one of those guys that showed all of the warning signs, but he slipped through the cracks because people like me looked the other way. And while it might have seemed insensitive of me to make the school shooting a subplot rather than the main plot—as written, it seems like just another addition to the pile of crap that Bella's dealing with—the school shooting isn't centered because the lack of centering is the reason things like this happen, in my opinion. In other words, Americans keep ignoring warning signs because we're not trained to recognize them, we're not trained about what to do when we see them, the police ignore us when we tell them we've seen them, and we have a shit-ton of other things going on in our lives. This violence keeps taking us by surprise, which is idiotic because it keeps happening. I believe that should change.**

 **That being said, this chapter was plotted years ago, written last summer, and posted a week ago. Things have happened since I posted it last Saturday in the USA that might have given me pause about posting it if I had to do so now (Megyn Kelly's announcement about interviewing the Sandy Hook-denier Alex Jones and the Congressional shooting). I don't know how I would've handled the change, but I'm not a monster.**

 **Alternatively, people are shot every day in America. According to a tweet from Eric Schneiderman, the NY AG (tweet sent on 15June at 6:34 pm), 300 Americans are shot every day, 93 Americans die of gun violence every day, and 7 kids and teenagers die from of gun violence every day. It seems insane to pretend that this isn't happening.**

 **Maybe some people (especially Americans) are especially sensitive to this subject right now but, to steal from a tweet I read on Wednesday (don't remember who wrote it), if now's not the time to talk about this, when is?**

 **The plot required Edward to think that Bella was dead. I could've done this differently. I could've staged a car accident or something of the sort, but I wanted to talk about this student I had and about my fears about a student bringing a gun to school. Maybe that would've been better off in its own story. Maybe it was just too much for a story that was already loaded down with so many issues. Maybe this guest reviewer is right to complain about gun violence being a subplot.**

 **Thank you for the kindly worded comment. I'm sorry I offended you. I hope that my follow up to this scene resolves some of your concerns.**

 **If anyone's interested in a story that does focus on the complicated issues surrounding a school shooting than** _ **Corrupting Influence**_ **, I highly recommend** _ **Seventeen Minutes**_ **by queenofthenile91.**

 **Lest anyone have a similar concern with regard to the suicide plot:**

 **Edward's self-denigrating notions about his illness are** _ **his**_ **words, not mine. He's depressed. Depressed people often blame themselves for their depression. That's one of the reasons it's so difficult for them to think that they deserve help. (As I think should be obvious.)**

 **That being said, people are responsible for their actions. Bella has a right to be mad for a lot of things. Ideally, she wouldn't have yelled at Edward, but the "ideal world" isn't the "real world." My mother would use threats of self-harm in order to shut people down. She would use it to control the conversation, because you're not allowed to pick on people who are suicidal. Never mind that people who intentionally hurt themselves are also hurting the people who love them. The latter have a right to their anger, even if they should probably wait until the target of their anger is ready to talk about it.**

 **I never got to tell my mother how angry I was at her for threatening to kill herself over and over again while I was growing up. I always told myself that it wasn't worth it to say anything. There never was a right time. I always—always—had to walk on eggshells with her.**

 **And I'm still a little angry at her for the way she died. She didn't kill herself per se, but one could argue that it was still her fault.**

 **Edward isn't my mother. He isn't using threats of self-harm in order to control people. But he** _ **is**_ **controlling them. All of the attention is on him right now. Yes, he's sick, but he doesn't get a pass on that.**

 **Do I agree with Bella that suicide is a basic human right? Yes. Sometimes.**

 **(I think that maybe you lose that right when you decide to have kids.)**

 **I know that my position on suicide is controversial. I know that—like the situation shown here—it's not always clear cut. How can you say a person is acting rationally when he/she is contemplating suicide? I know that the example of Seneca might be considered a special case (the details are in chapter 13). As per usual, I'm not going to hand out any easy answers. I don't think that's my job. I think my job is to** _ **talk**_ **about the issues, not to resolve them, because there are no easy fixes, and real life's not simple. This story is rated M. You can handle your own shit.**

 **And yes, I know about the controversy surrounding** _ **13 Reasons Why.**_ **If you think that I should have avoided the subject of suicide, because it's too real or something, I refer you to my response about the school shooting above and add that suicide is much more central to this plot than school violence, so the argument for including it is even stronger. I would also point out that 20 American veterans kill themselves every day, according to a July 7, 2016** _ **Military Times**_ **article, and suicide is the second leading cause of death for people aged 10-24 according to** _ **The Jason Foundation,**_ **to give you just a few statistics.**

 **As for continuity with the themes of this story, Edward's addiction was always very bound up with depression. He's contemplating suicide in his very first scene. And you might also recall that Edward from** _ **New Moon**_ **tried to kill himself. But no one had shit to say about that, did they? Did Edward get counseling? Was that issue ever dealt with in a serious, real fashion? Because I don't recall that book, do you? Was Meyers being irresponsible or insensitive?**

 **I wrote this Edward because I am fascinated by the push-pull dynamics of hedonism and nihilism in de Sade's philosophy, the implication that the root of hedonism is self-destruction. I wrote this Edward because my grandfather killed himself. Because my mother threatened to do so over again. Because suicide is everywhere in my society right now.**

 **America is one of the unhappiest countries on earth, and yet we are one of the richest. We're hedonists. We're addicted to luxuries and yet we're fucking miserable.**

 **No, Edward's not a parable for America. I'm not that fucking shallow. But I don't think that he's the only one of his kind.**

 **I absolutely understand his depression, because I've struggled with it myself. I don't struggle with addiction per se, but I get it. My father was an alcoholic. And I have an imagination. I can understand why addiction is so integrally tied to Edward's depression. My research into his condition indicates that it's quite common for a person with his addiction to also suffer from depression.**

 **While I think it's natural for Edward to be ashamed of his condition, it's not something people should be ashamed of. Unfortunately, mental illness is on the list of proposed preexisting conditions in America, so in the future people like Edward won't be able to afford health insurance if it's on our record. As a consequence, the suicide rate is bound to increase, with even more people avoiding the help they need out of fear of losing their health insurance. But rich people want lower taxes, and this is a capitalist country.**

 **If you need help, there are ways to get it anonymously. If you live in the USA and are in crisis, text "Go" to 741741 or call 1-800-273-8255. Other support services are available at www dot crisistextline dot org. Suicide dot org has resources for people living outside of the USA.**

 **Thanks for reading.**


	35. Chapter 35

**Song: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Hidden track after "Modern Romance" on Fever to Tell**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

' _I see in myself, Lucilius, not just an improvement but a transformation_.' – Seneca the Younger, translated by Robin Campbell

Chapter 35

"Orpheus and Eurydice," Bella said, answering Edward's question about the myth he'd been trying to recall. The one about the man who travelled to the Underworld in search of his wife.

"What happened in the end?" Edward asked.

He and Bella had been talking for hours. They still had a shitload of problems to still get through, including a collection of anxious relatives nervously waiting outside of Edward's hospital room (among whom was a stepsister who may or may not have been trying to eavesdrop).

They weren't going to solve everything that day. But it was a start.

Bella's forehead wrinkled. "Eurydice had to stay in the Underworld. Orpheus didn't listen to what they said."

"No, I mean after that. What happened to Orpheus then?"

Bella's eyes widened. "Oh. It didn't go very well for him."

"What happened?" Edward asked again.

"Remember those women from my lecture who went crazy?"

Edward nodded.

Bella looked uneasy. "Um, they tore Orpheus apart."

"Are you serious?"

Bella shrugged.

Edward shook his head. "Anyone ever tell you that the Greeks were a little messed up?"

"Maybe I'm a little messed up, too," Bella confessed.

But Edward didn't want to hear that. "Bullshit."

She shrugged again.

Edward glared at her. "Don't give me that. Besides, I think it's all propaganda."

"What?"

"The idea that we're so civilized. It's propaganda. Because we're still animals. We're all still a hairsbreadth from losing it."

Bella looked skeptical.

"I'm serious," Edward said. "What if that's the point of all those Greek myths? Yeah the Greeks came up with great philosophy and great architecture, but they were still bat-shit crazy."

Bella smiled weakly, not wanting to fight. But she felt a little punch-drunk. "I'm sure that's just what your family wants to hear you saying right now. Thank God I didn't bring the Seneca. They'd throw me out of here."

"Fuck 'em," Edward said, then paused, cocking his head to the side. "Now if you'd brought _Terese, The Philosopher_ , that would've been a whole other story."

He smiled, well aware of the fact that he was being a little manic. He was just so fucking, fucking happy that Bella was there, talking to him.

"You didn't, did you?" he asked. "Bring the _Terese_? Because if you did, I wouldn't mind being read to sleep."

Unbeknownst to either Edward or Bella, Alice was standing in the hallway outside of Edward's hospital room just then, scowling petulantly as she pulled her ear away from his door. "Now they're laughing."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Esme asked, not really caring what Bella and Edward were talking about, as long as they were talking.

"But I couldn't hear what they were laughing about."

Edward and Bella didn't say anything definitive about the future that day, or confirm the exact status of their relationship. But they were, indeed, talking.

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"This university just has so much power over us," Angela said. "I've given five years of my life to this place and God knows how much money. Dr. Volturri's got my entire future in her hands and what—I'm just supposed to tell her to go to hell? She's one of the few scholars in this field with real name recognition. Do I really want to be known as the woman who accused her of sexual harassment? What if they don't believe me? What if they do? It's hard enough in this day and age to get work without a reputation like that. People always blame the victim. They say 'a grown ass adult couldn't refuse?'"

"So you just let her get away with it?" Bella asked.

Going to Angela for advice had paid off in more ways than one for Bella. Not only was Angela was sympathetic, she didn't question whether or not Bella was telling the truth, because Dr. Volturri had already pulled the same shit on Angela.

But Angela was reluctant to go through with a complaint. "You say that like we have a choice. Dr. Volturri's sleeping with the fucking Provost."

"How do you know?"

"How do you think?"

Bella stared at Angela in shock. "This isn't right. What they're doing to you is wrong. You don't deserve this."

"I let them do it, don't I?" Angela snapped, wiping away a tear. "And heaven help me, sometimes it even turns me on. That's going to be the really humiliating part, just warning you. The fact that you sometimes have a good time."

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"How do you feel about that?"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Bella stared at the counselor, Siobhan Rourke. "That's a stupid question."

"Why? Your friend tells you that she's being harassed. That it's been going on for a long time. Information like that can spark a whole array of conflicting feelings."

"What conflict?" Bella asked. "It's disgusting. That's it. I'm horrified."

"For your friend?"

"Of course."

Siobhan nodded.

Not for the first time, Bella reflected on just how much she hated Siobhan. Always acting all sphinx-like, like she had some secret and she wasn't sharing. Always prying into all of Bella's secrets. It was an invasion.

Unfortunately, Bella had no choice but to finish the appointment. Even had Edward not insisted that Bella start seeing someone, she would've ended up in Siobhan's office. The university was paying for it—was _insisting_ on it—before they'd let Bella return to her duties as a TA.

"It's just a coincidence, isn't it?" Siobhan asked.

"What?"

"Your friend was put in this situation. You were put in this situation."

"You mean this professor—" Bella still refused to give Siobhan a name.

"I mean your boyfriend and his old girlfriend."

Bella's mouth fell open. She had never intended to tell Siobhan about any of that. It was only by accident that the details had come out. Siobhan had been going on and on about the shooting, and it was just getting on Bella's nerves. Because yeah, it was fucking horrible, and Bella felt like shit for the way she'd failed James, for the way she'd failed her students. But that was just one problem of many. "I've got so much on my plate right now," Bella said. "You have no idea." Naturally, Siobhan couldn't just let it go at that—couldn't just respect a person's privacy—so Bella _had_ to tell her about Edward's accident. And Bella insisted that it was _just_ an accident, too because that was none of Siobhan's business. But when Bella mentioned that Edward was going to be getting counselling, Siobhan had to know about all of that too, at which point Bella had to admit that he was depressed, but Bella didn't like the way that sounded, like there was something wrong with him, so she added that he had a lot going on. Siobhan wanted to know if Bella felt betrayed by what Edward had done—hurting himself like that—and Bella had to admit that she did ( _Who wouldn't?_ ) but at the same time, Bella acknowledged that she had hurt Edward too. Bella had made mistakes. _Like what?_ Bella didn't want to say—it was none of Siobhan's business—but if Siobhan really had to know, Bella had maybe, just maybe, been using Edward for a while. Only at first. Before she really knew him. It wasn't really Bella's fault anyhow, because Edward's ex-girlfriend had put her up to it. And Bella knew it was wrong—using someone like that—but at the time she felt like Edward deserved it. She still felt guilty about that now. "But I refuse to feel guilty about the rest of it," she said. _The rest of what?_ Bella shrugged. "The way it happened," Bella said, skirting the details. But then Bella realized that the fact that she _had_ to skirt those details was bullshit. "Not that there's anything wrong with it," she said, her arms crossed. "It was how my mother made a living." _Her mother?_ Bella shook her head, knowing what Siobhan was thinking, so fucking judgmental. "It was only her body," Bella snapped. "It wasn't like it was her soul. Like all of those fucking politicians, who just sell their souls to whoever's buying. And no one says a thing about them." If Bella thought that would put Siobhan off the scent, she was woefully mistaken, because Siobhan was like a rabid dog after that, going after every scrap of meat. Which was just bullshit, because _that_ wasn't the reason that Bella was here. Bella was only in Siobhan's office because of an incident with a student. A regrettable incident. James had nothing to do with her mother or with Edward or with her father, for that matter—who had just died—nothing at all. And it wasn't any of Siobhan's business how Bella was getting along with Edward now. _No_ , Bella didn't trust him. Not entirely. But she never had. That was why she had preferred it when he was rough—and who the hell was he to make such a big deal about something like that? Like there was something wrong with Bella just because she didn't like it when he was gentle? _Well, why didn't she like it?_ What kind of a question was that? She just didn't. That was all. _Did it scare her?_ Why the fuck would it scare her? How weird would she have to be for something like that to scare her? And anyhow, so what if it did? Maybe it scared the ever loving shit out of Bella whenever Edward was too conscientious and considerate. Because maybe he was trying to take her off her guard. Like he actually thought she was going to trust him after the way he just gave in to Tanya's games. The way he and Tanya just _used_ Bella.

Which wasn't at all like the way that Angela had been used by Dr. Volturri. Because Angela was a victim.

Bella _chose_ it. She wasn't a victim.

 _She wasn't._

And fuck anyone who tried to suggest otherwise.

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It became obvious pretty quickly that Edward and Bella hadn't resolved a goddamn thing, really, other than the fact that they didn't want to be apart.

Not that either of them was quite clear on what that meant.

Edward agreed to try therapy again. He didn't hold out much hope that it would make a difference, and he had to go through three therapists before he finally found one that he could tolerate, but he was giving it a try.

He was also very happy to hear that the university was sending Bella to a counselor.

Then he realized that Bella's counselor might very well tell Bella to break up with him.

 _Cue panic attack._

Trying to get a fucking grip, Edward told himself that counselors weren't supposed to say shit like that.

Except that they _did_ and _would_ say shit like that if they thought that their client was in danger.

Not that Edward would _ever_ hurt Bella.

Except that he _had_ hurt her, hadn't he? In that bathroom. And afterwards. Not physically, but psychologically.

"We're not here to talk about Bella," therapist #1 made the mistake of telling Edward. "We're here to talk about you."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Edward asked. "I'm only here so that I can figure out how to avoid being an asshole. So that I can fix things with Bella. And with my family. _This_ is what I'm paying you for."

"You're my primary concern," therapist #1 said. "You might need to break up with Bella if she's impeding your recovery."

Therapist #2 was willing to work within the parameters Edward set out, but he wanted to focus on Edward's depression first.

"Bella makes me happy. If I can just work everything out with Bella, I'll be happy."

"I'm just concerned that you're using her as a crutch."

Therapist #3 didn't beat around the bush. "Well, you were right. Bella's therapist might tell her to break up with you."

"No." Edward could feel the panic setting in. "She can't."

"Why should she stay with you? If it's in her best interest to break up with you, shouldn't she do just that?"

Edward opened his mouth to argue, then stopped. Because if it was in Bella's best interest to break up with him, then yeah, that was what she should do. "I want what's best for her."

Therapist #3 nodded. "And if she did break up with you, what would that mean for you?"

Edward rubbed his chest. "I don't even—." He swallowed. "I don't know how I can do this without her."

"But if she decides to stay with you only because she thinks that you need her, wouldn't that be a kind of blackmail?"

Edward decided that he fucking hated therapist #3. "So what're you saying? I have to break up with her?"

Edward would break up with her, if he had to, but he really, really, really hoped that therapist #3 wouldn't think it was necessary.

"What would you think of a joint session?"

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"This is humiliating, you know," Bella said, wiping away a tear. "Sitting here, talking about it, in front of a stranger."

"I'm sorry," Edward said for the tenth time since they'd entered the room.

"Everyone appreciates that you're sorry," therapist #3 said. "But the real problem is that you would even think of doing something like that. Sex isn't supposed to be degrading."

"Exactly," Bella said, feeling a little better, hearing the therapist say it like that. Bella had been thinking the same thing, but she couldn't put it in words. "It wasn't _what_ you did, it was _how_ you did it."

"Can you talk some more about that Bella?" the therapist asked.

Bella pursed her lips. She didn't like the ball being passed completely to her. "It's just." She shrugged. She didn't want to have to sit through a lecture about how she should respect herself more. She got enough of that from Siobhan. "In another situation, if it was just me and Edward, I might have said I didn't like that. Don't do it again. But I wouldn't have been _hurt_. I wouldn't have felt so _cheap._ "

"And why did you feel cheap?"

"Because his parents were right in the next room!" Bella snapped. _What was so complicated about this?_ "Because he did it to hurt me. Because of what he said afterwards."

"I'm sor—" Edward started again.

"Who does that?" Bella interrupted, looking at Edward. "Who does that to someone? I would _never_ do that to you."

Edward didn't reply.

After a moment, the therapist cleared his throat. "I'm not defending what Edward did—"

Bella snorted, because that meant the therapist was going to do just that. _Men._

"But you admitted that you used sex to hurt Edward too, Bella."

"It wasn't the same thing."

"No. But you used sex as a weapon."

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"They know about the deal with Tanya," Bella said, her face in her hands.

"And they still think that I'm the moral degenerate in this relationship. That should tell you something."

Edward's cavalier attitude was pissing Bella off. "This isn't a joke," she said. "How am I supposed to look them in the eye?"

"Picture them naked."

Bella was about to tell him to go to hell when Siobhan interrupted. "Bella's concerns are real, Edward. She's worried about how your family sees her."

"But that's just it," Edward said, shaking his head. "She shouldn't. They love her. It's me they can't stand."

Though it might not have been obvious, Edward was on his best behavior. He was still worried that Siobhan might tell Bella to break up with him, and he wanted to seem like he was worthy of keeping around.

The idea that his family would think less of Bella, though, was just too fucking ridiculous.

"They know about your father," Edward reminded her. "They understand what you did."

"No. It shouldn't matter why I did it. It's none of their business anyways."

Bella knew that she wasn't making any sense, but she was still so conflicted.

She felt bad about hurting Edward. But she also thought that this—hurting him—should be the only point of contention. There was nothing wrong with prostitution in and of itself.

She told herself this over and over again.

But she couldn't help feeling like she had done some irreparable harm to herself by making that deal with Tanya.

"So we tell them that," Edward said. "We tell them that it's none of their business and I promise that they'll never witness another scene like that again."

"They're your family. If anyone deserves an explanation, it's them."

And around they went.

There was no magic moment when everything clicked. No wonderful point of enlightenment. Edward and Bella just kept going to therapy and talking to each other.

They finally had dinner with Edward's family. And as awful as Bella was afraid that that dinner was going to be, it was just fine. Awkward, but fine.

It was followed by more dinners, and other meals, and longer get-togethers. And it got easier every time.

Two years later, Esme and Bella would be standing in a department store, and Esme would be asking Bella about some curtains that Esme thought would look good in the apartment that Edward and Bella would be sharing by that point, and Bella (who was a little stressed out at the time, with everything that was going on) would snap that she didn't need Esme's help, because Bella always got along just fine without Esme, and Esme would say that she was sorry, that she was just trying to help, and Bella would laugh and say something along the lines of "You're really good at that," and Esme would ask "What does that mean?" and Bella would try to blow it off, but then decide— _What the hell?—_ to just put it out there, and it would all come out, in the middle of a department store, how Bella had felt so abandoned all of those years earlier, and Esme would apologize and say that she had tried—but that she wished that she had tried harder—it wouldn't be the first time Esme had tried to talk about the past with Bella, but it would be the first time that Bella would be honest with her, and that day, in a department store, it wouldn't really fix everything, but it would help.

Carlisle was both easier and harder for Bella to face. He had already apologized to Bella for not intervening when her mother came to town, and Bella had shrugged the apology off. She had never blamed him for anything, in part because she had never really felt that close to him. No, the problem with Carlisle was that he reminded her of her father. And it turned Bella's stomach to think of her father knowing the things that Carlisle knew about her.

On the anniversary of her father's death, Bella would be rushing around, trying to keep as busy as possible, lest she be completely consumed by that gutted feeling that was still inspired whenever she thought of her father, and she would be putting the finishing touches on a salad, because she and Edward were hosting a dinner party, and Carlisle would be suddenly standing next to her in the kitchen, telling her how proud her father would be of her, and it would be like a fucking knife to the chest, because how could Carlisle say something like that, and then she would be crying with her face in her hands and Edward would be demanding to know what the fuck Carlisle had said to her, and Carlisle would ignore his son and tell Bella that her father loved her, no matter what, _no matter what_ , and it would occur to Bella that, as ashamed as she still was by everything she had done, she had done it for love, and there was nothing to be ashamed about for that.

Emmett and Rosalie were easier for Bella to manage. If anything, they were just surprised (and maybe a little disappointed) that she was sticking with Edward.

Alice and Jasper were a different story. Bella had actually hurt Alice with her lies, and Bella was beyond mortified about everything that Jasper had witnessed. But then Jasper told Bella about his cousin who was married to another cousin, and about the uncle who was in jail for making moonshine. She was pretty sure that Jasper was lying about all of this, but it made her feel better. Alice was indeed hurt that Bella had lied to her, but she was also determined not to let that impede the restoration of their friendship, especially since Alice didn't have the greatest record herself. More than anything, Alice was worried about Bella, worried because Bella had agreed to do something so fundamentally self-damaging.

"How could you let someone do that to you?" Alice asked.

"No one did it to me," Bella argued. "I agreed. It was my decision."

But Alice didn't look convinced.

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Edward had been understandably incensed when he learned that some of the parents of the students were threatening to sue Bella for the incident with James. But that was nothing compared to his reaction when he learned about Dr. Volturri's harassment.

"I knew that there was something wrong her," he snapped. "Who the hell sends a college student to Breaking Dawn?"

Bella didn't like the way that sounded. Like maybe she was stupid for going along with Dr. Volturri.

But she didn't want to argue with Edward, especially now that Angela had changed her mind about submitting a complaint.

Unfortunately, Bella's attempts to record Dr. Volturri saying something incriminating had fallen through. But the professor had dropped her guard with Angela, who was able to get enough evidence to squash any doubt about whether or not the professor had crossed a line.

As news of Bella and Angela's complaint spread, more and more students came forward with their own complaints. In the end, the Provost and Dr. Volturri were both forced to resign and it looked as if civil suits were going to be filed.

Meanwhile, the so-called lawsuits against Bella evaporated. One student after another appeared on television thanking Bella for saving their lives. Not only had she distracted James so that the students could text for help, but she had grabbed the gun and held onto it. Bree, the young woman who had mistakenly proclaimed Bella's death to the world on YouTube, was particularly outspoken about what a great TA Bella was.

The university decided to start a program to provide comprehensive training for TAs about detecting the signs that a student was at risk for crisis and the classroom procedures should violence break out.

Pleased though she was by her students' support, and by the university's decision to start a new program, Bella still felt immensely guilty about her role in the incident with James. She felt like she should have done something more. But she wasn't quite sure what that was.

Should she have tried to talk to him more?

Even with the new training, TAs just weren't qualified for that. And it wasn't really their job.

Should she have reported James to the crisis center?

But James wasn't Bella's first odd student. _Hell, she used to be one of those alienated students_. Not that she would have shot anyone, but she definitely had problems. If someone had reported Bella to the crisis center when she was an undergrad, she probably would have dropped out of school altogether.

Bella was obviously struggling. She was happy that the university gave a few options to the students who were present during the shooting.

They could finish the semester with Bella (in a different room of course), they could switch sections, they could take the final early based on what they'd already learned, or they could just take the grade that they'd had at the time of the shooting.

Bella was surprised by the number of students who decided to finish the semester out, and by the fact that of those who remained, none switched out of her section.

It was a complete coincidence that Kate, Garrett, Riley, and Vladimir all happened to receive an A in _Introduction to Ancient Western History_.

As for James, he pled "Guilty" in exchange for a fifteen year sentence at a mental hospital.

Edward was none too pleased at the outcome of the case, but Bella just wanted James to get the treatment he needed.

That Bella's guilt over this situation folded so neatly into her guilt regarding her treatment of Edward and her failure to notice Edward's depression was neither here nor there.

But it was certainly a good thing that Bella won the departmental dissertation award, thanks to which she'd have a whole semester to concentrate on her dissertation, with no teaching obligations.

"It's like they don't trust me with students anymore," she complained to Edward.

"If that was true, they wouldn't have let you finish out the previous semester," Edward said, trying to get comfortable.

He had returned to his work at the hospital despite his limited mobility, his leg still being in a cast. But at the moment, he was laid up on the couch, working on an article—or rather, procrastinating, enjoying a phone call with Bella.

His time with Bella was fairly limited these days. Therapist #3 had expressed some concerns regarding co-dependency, and much to Edward's disappointment, Siobhan had seconded these concerns.

As a result, Bella and Edward saw each other only a few times a week. This was particularly frustrating given that Bella's scholarship meant that she didn't need to be at the university every day. She could have been working on her dissertation at Edward's apartment as easily as hers.

But they were trying to follow the advice of their therapists. Most of the time anyhow.

Bella sighed. "I just can't help thinking that maybe James was right. I get off on fucking with students' heads—in making them question assumptions."

"James wasn't right about anything." Edward was trying to be patient with Bella. But they'd been over this issue again and again.

"Plato said that teachers were dangerous, you know. He said they shouldn't be trusted near young people. Because we make them think crazy things."

"How is anyone ever supposed to think something new unless they're challenged? Teachers are supposed to fuck with kids' heads. That's in the job description."

Unfortunately, this wasn't the only thing that Bella was worried about.

"I just—" she paused. "I just wanted to earn it. I don't want this scholarship if they only gave it to me to keep me out of the classroom."

"You earned it."

"Or maybe they gave it to me because they feel bad about Dr. Volturri."

"You earned it," Edward repeated.

"You don't know that."

"Oh, I know that."

"How could you poss—"

"I've been reading your draft."

"What?"

Edward shrugged even though Bella couldn't see. "You left a hardcopy here."

Bella was baffled. "Why would you want to read something like that?"

"You're still writing about virgins. I thought we agreed that I was obsessed with them."

"I _have_ to read this stuff. I have no choice. But you're _choosing_ to do it. That's not normal. You know that, right?"

Edward chuckled. "I was especially interested in that guy who said men were incapable of virginity."

"Of _maintaining_ virginity," Bella corrected. "Chastity."

"Yeah that. And the hermaphrodite in heaven."

That last sentence was out of Edward's mouth before he had a chance to really think about what he was saying. And when he realized what he had done, he wished that he had kept his mouth shut.

Bella recognized the story he was talking about. _The Exegesis of the Soul._

"It was androgynous, not a hermaphrodite," Bella said. "At least, when it was in heaven. Then it fell to earth and acquired genitalia. _Male_ genitalia."

Edward was trying to figure a way out of this conversation.

"Then the Soul becomes a prostitute," Bella continued. "Because why not?"

"Bella—"

"But it's miserable. _He_ 's miserable. So he cries out for help. And God comes to the rescue."

"I didn't mean—"

"God turns the Soul into a woman and He sends her a husband. It's all very nuclear family. They all go back to heaven together."

"I just thought it was romantic," Edward said, trying to explain himself.

"Romantic?" Bella didn't sound angry.

But Edward was well-aware that they were treading a sensitive issue.

"I don't know, I just—" He felt dumb. "I know it sounds stupid, but if someone loves you, they love you, no matter what. And they're there for you."

Bella was quiet for a minute. "But you've missed the point of the story."

Edward was wary. "I have?"

"If guys are incapable of virginity and the Soul only makes it back to heaven as a woman, then men are definitely all going to hell."

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

Bella huffed. "What two consenting adults agree to do is between _them_. It's for no one else to judge. And now you're telling me that if it's not vanilla, that if it's not what—missionary?—that it's fucked up? Screw you."

"That's not what I said," Edward clarified.

"Bella," therapist #4 interrupted "let's give Edward a chance to express what he's feeling."

"Thank you," Edward scoffed, a bit heated. "What I'm _saying_ is, I just worry sometimes that when we're having sex that it's not about expressing our affection for each other—"

Because of therapy, Edward had learned that sex was supposed to be a demonstration of affection. _Who knew?_

Edward continued. "—I worry that sometimes we're using it to express other things. Like my stress over work. And I worry that you like being hurt because you think that you deserve it."

Bella couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Screw you," she said again, quickly wiping a tear from her eye.

"Bella, do you feel like you deserve to be hurt?" therapist #4 asked.

"That would be just too fucking clichéd, wouldn't it?" Bella asked. "How sad—I can't even be original enough to avoid a self-hating stereotype."

"Just because we rationally accept that something is illogical or is, as you put it, clichéd, doesn't mean that we aren't affected by it."

Bella wiped another tear from her eye. "And I guess I feel guilty because of what I did to Edward. And because of James. And oh, what else? My dad. I guess him dying's my fault too. And Edward probably wouldn't have run off into those woods if I would've been smart enough to figure out that he was depressed."

Edward didn't have a lot of patience for self-victimizing bullshit. His mother had pulled that shit. "Get over yourself."

"I think we need to take a timeout," therapist #4 said, trying to defuse the tension.

Disastrous as that session was, it was another first step.

Over the course of several months, Bella came to realize that her attitude towards sex was in some ways as fucked up as Edward's. Bella wasn't a submissive by nature. A little role playing now and then could be healthy, but the way she was using it was unhealthy.

Unfortunately, Edward's pushiness on the subject of Bella facing this particular demon backfired. Bella's unsubmissive nature balked at the prospect of probing just why she was so willing to accept a submissive role. It was her choice, wasn't it?

If Edward was a tad too pushy on this subject, it was because he was afraid that she was only with him because she was somehow damaged. As awful as that sounds, it was the truth. And as much as he would've hated losing Bella, Edward thought that she deserved to be "normal," even if it meant that she ended up with a guy like Cheney.

To Bella, that just sounded like Edward thought that he had somehow _broken_ her. And fuck him for thinking that. For thinking that he had that power over her.

Bella got better at recognizing her impulses towards self-harm. She got better at learning the difference between the things that she could control and the things that were beyond her power, the things that she should take responsibility for, and the things that she should forgive herself for while learning from her mistakes.

Not that she stopped blaming herself for her everything she had done, or not done, but instead of letting those feelings of guilt consume her or give rise to any masochistic behavior, she just promised herself to do better, to pay better attention to everyone and everything—to Edward and her students and everyone else—and to make better choices.

And as time passed, she and Edward learned to trust one another. It wasn't easy. In addition to their own lapses, they had to contend with the scars of every other lapse of every other person, because while Edward, for instance, wanted to trust Bella, he couldn't help remembering all of the times he had been betrayed by everyone else in his life, unconscious memories triggering defensive mechanisms. It wasn't enough to say that Bella was different, that she'd never do that (again). Edward had to know it, deep down in his core. As for Bella, the task was in some ways even harder, because she felt an added pressure, as if she was doing Edward some harm by not trusting him, so she kept pushing herself when she wasn't ready, and it kept backfiring, her panic kicking in as she realized just how utterly terrified she still was of the idea of letting anyone in, even Edward.

It was a work in progress.

Fortunately, Tanya—or "She who shall not be named"—was _not_ an issue, having left Seattle soon after the shooting. As much as Edward wanted to confront her— _fifty cents my ass_ —neither he nor Bella wanted to have anything to do with her again. Tanya had clearly left the message about the shooting on Bella's phone in a lame attempt to worm her way back into Edward's life, to console him during his hour in need. But there was no point in trying to find closure with her now that the dust had settled. Tanya wasn't worth the effort.

Unfortunately, there was another problem.

"You're just agreeing to see her because you always bend over backwards for other people," Edward argued. "You have to stop letting people use you."

Apparently, Bella's mother had been clean and sober for two years. She had a job in Portland, working at a coffeehouse. She said that she understood if Bella didn't want to have anything to do with her, but it was part of her twelve step program to make amends. She said that she wanted to meet Bella in person, and that she was willing to come up to Seattle to see her.

Edward was adamant that this was a very, very bad idea. But Bella was not convinced.

"Is it that I'm bending over backwards for my mother, or is it that I'm _not_ bending over backwards for you?" Bella wanted to know.

"What do you mean?"

"You don't want me to see her. And I'm not giving into you."

"She's going to hurt you. That's all she ever does."

"Are you worried that she's going to hurt me or that she's going to hurt _you_?"

Edward scoffed. "What could she do to me?"

"You tell me."

Edward thought about what Bella was asking him. His reaction to the situation _was_ a bit extreme. Concerned though he was for Bella, that alone couldn't explain it.

The truth was, Edward didn't want Bella to see her mother because it was a reminder of the person Edward used to be. Even though he knew that he had never touched Bella's mother, he had been convinced that he had done just that for so long—he had hated himself for so long—it was hard to think of Bella's mother reentering their life without remembering all of that.

"She's all the family I have left," Bella told him.

As much as Edward tried to reassure Bella that the Cullens were her family now, he knew that such reassurances could only go so far.

So he decided to support Bella, regardless of her decision.

It turned out, he needn't have worried. Bella was extremely wary of her mother.

They met in a crowded coffeehouse. They kept the discussion light, Renee saying how happy she was that Bella wasn't hurt by that boy—Renee had heard about James—and how proud she was of her daughter for getting her doctorate. Bella accepted the sentiments as graciously as she could, asking about her mother's new job and her life in Portland.

When Renee started to apologize for everything she'd put her daughter through, Bella somehow managed to stop herself from interrupting, letting her mother get it all out. Afterwards, Bella admitted that she wasn't ready to forgive and forget, but said that she appreciated her mother's efforts.

Before parting, they made vague plans about getting together again sometime in the future.

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI - CI

There were bumps in the road.

It took Bella another year to finish her dissertation. Meanwhile, Edward was still trying to repair his relationship with his family. And Bella was still trying to figure out just how she was going to fit into that family. Fights were had, some of these within the confines of the sacred space of a therapy session. Cullens & Co. weren't a perfect family by any stretch of the imagination, but they'd yet to give up on each other.

As for Bella and Edward's sex life, that had taken a somewhat comical turn.

They needed to ask their therapists' permission any time they wanted to so much as hold hands.

That was an exaggeration, of course, but not by much.

Six months after Edward's "accident," Bella was still living in her apartment and, although she had a key to Edward's place, they had a set schedule to which they were expected to comply. Talking (aka, foreplay) had never been a problem for them, but they were now required to carry on conversations without any promise of the discussion leading to sex, which was a decided step back.

They had a lot to talk about, including not only full disclosure about their pasts (which may or may not have devolved into a competition of "Who's Childhood Was Worse") and debates over just who was responsible for firing the first shot when they were teenagers.

Was it a little fucked up to be making a game of all of this? _Yes_. But they laughed, not because they were trying to deny the shit they'd gone through, but because they were finally getting through it, for real.

Interestingly, Edward found it far easier to address issues associated with the bedroom than his depression. Given the choice, he would have ignored the latter altogether, but as his therapist argued that the two were inextricably linked, Edward found that he had no choice but to deal with both.

It was hard fucking work, and Edward wondered sometimes what the fuck he was doing.

But he _was_ making it. He was probably never going to be a hundred percent. But who the fuck is?

As Edward recovered from his addiction, Bella and Edward began to enjoy sexual relations on a more regular basis. If they weren't engaging in as much role play or experimenting with new positions as much as they used to, their sex life certainly wasn't vanilla.

When Bella told Edward how the scene in the bathroom had reminded her of what happened to her in Port Angeles—how she had already been thinking of that particular activity in the context of the attack—Edward took the activity in question completely off of the table, prepared to shelve it for good. But Bella wasn't interested.

"I'm not doing this because someone's making me," she said. "Or because it's somehow bad for me. I'm not doing it because I've got someone else in my head. It's just you. And I want this with you."

It took Bella a while, but she finally convinced Edward to give it a try.

And it took Bella even longer, but she convinced him to try another certain activity they'd been putting off.

"It's not nihilism if it's an expression of our love for each other," Bella insisted.

So Edward gave in.

And when Bella came across a flash drive filled with certain pictures stuck in between the cushions of Edward's sofa, an excited Edward (who thought that he'd lost all of his old photos of Bella) suggested they reenact some of his favorites.

Bella happily agreed.

THE END

 **AN:**

 **In reference to Dr. Volturri's harassment of Angela, the line "a grown ass adult couldn't refuse?" is taken from a guest reviewer who asked: "bella, a grown ass adult, couldn't refuse?" The review's been deleted, because** _ **Fuck that**_ **. But I included it in the story because** _ **Holy shit, assholes like this really exist?**_ **I know that people still blame the victim, but I mistakenly believed that Fanfiction's audience was better than that. I'm sad to see that's not the case.**

 **On a somewhat lighter note, Achilles Tatius refers to the impossibility of male virginity when his hero, the** _ **sexually promiscuous**_ **Clitophon, declares to the heroine (named Leucippe): "I have imitated your virginity, if there be any virginity in men" (Achilles Tatius 5.20.5), and later clarifies, "If there be any such thing as virginity among us men, then that I have preserved with respect to Leucippe" (Achilles Tatius 8.5.8).** **Achilles Tatius** _ **Clitophon and Leucippe**_ **trans.** **S. Gaselee (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1917). The hero has been having sex (cheating on Leucippe), but if there is no such thing as male virginity, Clitophon isn't to be blamed for his lapse. Meanwhile, Leucippe has been going through** _ **a lot**_ **to preserve her virginity. It's a double standard. Surprise surprise.**

 _ **The Exegesis of the Soul**_ **is from the Nag Hammadi gospels.**

 **Thank you for reading.**


	36. Chapter 36

**Song inspiration: Jeff Buckley's cover of** _ **Hallelujah**_

 **Censored: This chapter is censored for sexual content. The uncensored chapter (it's just a few sentences longer) is on Fictionpad.**

 **Disclaimer: Characters belong to Stephanie Meyers. Aside from a few obvious parallels to the** _ **Twilight**_ **universe, this plot belongs to me.**

 **The quotations in the first part of the epilogue are from Plotinus' treatise** _ **On Beauty,**_ **abridged and translated by someone whose name I forgot to record while typing out the quotations.**

Hermaphrodites were once numerous, and they were a mighty thing to behold, so impressive in their strength that the gods feared they would storm heaven itself. To protect themselves, the gods split the hermaphrodites in half, separating the male and the female. So now, instead of plotting against heaven, each sex wastes its time seeking out the other, desperate to restore what was once whole. – Adapted from Plato's _Symposium_

Epilogue

" _What makes bodily forms beautiful to behold? On every side it is said that visual beauty is constituted by symmetry of parts. However, if the whole is beautiful, its parts must be beautiful too; since beauty cannot be the sum of ugliness."_

His chin. The square lines of his jaw.

She loved his chin.

But then, she also loved his shoulders.

And the curve of his spine into his—

" _When one sees the same face, constant in its symmetry, now beautiful and now not, is it not obvious that beauty is other than symmetry, and that symmetry draws its beauty from something else? Clearly beauty is something detected at a first glance, something that the soul—remembering—names, recognizes, gives welcome to, and, in a way, fuses with."_

Her lips. Like rosebuds.

He loved her lips. Tongue darting out, lightening fast, he would taste her lips. Then carefully, gently, he would lower his mouth over hers.

He would breathe her air.

" _When the soul falls in with ugliness, it shrinks back, repulses it, turns away from it as disagreeable and alien. Thus the soul is akin to beauty because in beauty it recognizes its source and its true substance."_

"You make me better," he whispered as she hovered over him.

He remembered the man he used to be. The man he was before she found him.

But she remembered, too. Recalled the things she'd done to him. The person she'd been back then.

And so his words took her by surprise, causing her to pause, mid-movement.

She gazed down at his shape, indistinct in the dim light. " _I_ make _you_ better?" she asked.

She felt him nod, her hand on his cheek.

"But what am I?" she whispered. "What am I?"

 _Not much_ , she thought, recalling the vicious, cruel way she'd used him. The things she'd done to herself.

"The woman I love," he replied.

And she wanted to cry and yell at him at the same time, to thank him and to warn him to go, because she could see it out there—in the distance—the possibility that she could hurt him again. Because it was in her, this easy viciousness that would make it so simple to turn on him, not because she didn't love him, but because she did. And she must not brook such weakness in herself.

She knew what leaving him would mean, though. She had seen him miserable and exhausted and—

Yet it was a choice. She could choose to try. She could choose to let herself love him.

"You make me better," she said.

" _Take then, an ugly soul. It is dissolute, unjust, teeming with lusts, torn by inner discord, beset by craven fears and petty envies. It is a filthy thing, borne every which way by the allurement of sensory objects, branded by bodily material, always immersed in matter and sucking matter into itself. If he would be attractive once more, he has to wash himself, get clean, make himself what he was before."_

Could he remember this feeling? Could he remember ever feeling this—this lighthearted? This sense of gaiety and pleasure?

Desire he could remember, yes. But not real pleasure, not satisfaction.

This was new, this contentment of knowing that his happiness was not contingent on some elusive goal, but within his grasp. _Trusting_ that she would be there.

Yet it was so obvious, so clear, now that he had it within his sights, that he couldn't ignore a sense of recognition. It was too comforting to be so utterly unfamiliar.

Even if he couldn't recall ever having experienced anything remotely like it.

A pretty story—she said it was a pretty story about a single soul halved, and brought together again, lover and beloved, a single soul with its two halves reunited. She said it was a fiction, an allegory meant to express an abstract truth.

She said that lust was a biological imperative. Nothing more.

And when she talked like that, he could see it, the fear in her eyes, could almost sense the words on her lips, could hear the words she wasn't saying, the warning lest he love her too much, because she wasn't a character in a story, she was real—flesh and blood—and she might hurt him.

But she loved him. He could see that, too. Despite her fears, she loved him.

"I remember this," she said, resting her head on his shoulder. "I don't know how or when, but I feel like this is a memory. Being here with you now, like this. It's just so—" She paused.

"Familiar," he said, filling in the word for her.

Maybe it _was_ just a pretty story, this myth about a soul cleaved in half and later reunited, lover and beloved, but it felt true sometimes. Felt true all of the way down to his bones, like air and water and breathing. Easy and real. An unconscious memory of someone he was meant to be, but forgot.

" _The soul is ugly when it is not purely itself. If you do not as yet see beauty within you, do as does the sculptor of a statue that is to be beautified: he cuts away here, he smooths it there, he makes this line lighter, this one purer, until he disengages beautiful lineaments in the marble. No eye that has not yet become like unto the sun will ever look upon the sun; nor will any that is not beautiful look upon the beautiful. Let each one therefore become godlike and beautiful who would contemplate the divine and beautiful."_

Edward had once had sex with a woman who claimed to be a Satanist. He thought the woman was just putting on airs, what with the allusion to illicit doings. It was a desperate bid to seem more interesting than she actually was, because the conversation—and the sex—was more bluster than action.

But there was a moment—a weird quiet moment—when Edward had been staring up at the so-called Satanist, at the sheen of sweat on her skin and her round wild eyes, the purple smudge of lipstick across her cheek, the riot of hair around her head, her mouth hanging open as she panted, the frenzied pace of her breathing in his ears as she clawed at his chest, and for just that instant, Edward felt like he was outside of himself, like he was somehow seeing himself, seeing what it was like to be him, unsated and beyond satiety, always hungering— _starving_ —lusting for something more.

Then the woman put her head back and howled.

 _Howled_.

It was equal parts comical and horrible.

Edward avoided her after that, opting instead to seek out Tanya who, for all her faults, had depths yet to plumb.

Later, of course, he found Bella and everything changed. He sometimes thought that Bella had saved him.

He knew it would make Bella angry to hear him say as much.

He knew she would complain that he was putting her on a pedestal. She would say that it was unfair to her, because she couldn't possibly keep her balance up there all alone.

But he'd be there to catch her if she fell.

Unfortunately, a person will sometimes betray himself. A streak of masochism will inspire a vicious, angry nihilism. He'll think of stamping out his own native self.

It doesn't make sense. It's irrational.

And yet we are a capricious, illogical and violent race. Sometimes, in our madness, we grow tired of contentment. We become _bored_.

We wonder if we were not better off after Zeus cleaved us in two.

"Do you want to go?" he asked, the words hanging in the air between them, dangerous and violent. "Go. I'm not stopping you."

"If anyone's going, it's you," she told him. "Pack your things and leave."

And in his anger, not even thinking, he turned to find a suitcase.

And in her anger, she thought of letting him do so.

And they each could see the future in front of them. Cold. Silent.

A void made viable by their own self-doubt more than anything else.

The rejection more a commentary on their own self-loathing than their feelings for one another.

To choose each other, they would have to believe themselves worthy.

It was asking so much—too much, maybe.

Yet when he turned to her—when she reached for his arm—when they crashed together, it was with the furious raging of a soul who would not be torn asunder.

Perhaps it is just a myth. Perhaps it's foolish to let a simple biological imperative be twisted into something that's somewhere between heaven and hell.

But if there is a heaven—or a hell—is it not in a lover's eyes?

CI – CI – CI – CI – CI – CI

Bella and Edward weren't always having sex. They spent a great deal of time talking.

But they were also having a great deal of sex.

Within healthy bounds—as stipulated by their therapists—of course.

It was an expression of their love for one another. And they loved, a lot.

They continued to experiment. Though they were known to drop in on Edward's old sex shop on occasion, and they still enjoyed the intermittent spot of role playing, most of their love-making was devoted just to the two of them, with no gadgets or elaborate scenarios. Just Edward and Bella.

In part, this may have been because Bella took it as something of a challenge to find positions that Edward had never before experienced.

And there was all of the time that they spent practicing conscious touch, becoming experts in stroking, tugging, pulling, twisting, and tapping.

Bella had even convinced Edward to let her test his notions about nihilism. The sensation of Bella behind him, inside of him, simultaneously pumping and stroking and twisting, nearly drove Edward wild with pleasure. She kept bringing him to the brink only to back off again. When he finally came, it was the most powerful orgasm he'd ever had.

Which was why he decided that it was worth trying Bella's latest idea.

Dubious though Edward was, he was willing to give it a go if it meant hours and hours of pleasure.

The beginning wasn't all that bad. Edward particularly enjoyed the part about worshipping the yoni and the lingam.

Later, limbs entwined in the lotus position, sitting up, facing one another, bare flesh touching, staring into each other's eyes, sharing each other's breaths, barely moving—

It was far more affecting than either of them would have expected.

And before long, Edward began to feel as if the entire world had shrunk down, until it was only the two of them. Eyes and breath and skin and hair.

Flesh tingled and burned and shivered. A drop of sweat teased and taunted and delighted.

Bella had been on the verge of cumming for what felt like forever, just hanging on the precipice until she thought that she would shatter if so much as another one of Edward's breaths touched her skin.

Edward had already cum once and was lingering on the edge of yet another orgasm—

When suddenly, Bella cried out.

It was a cramp, but she begged Edward not to yield, not to give up, her eyes widening in panic because she thought that she would lose her mind if he moved.

A while later, Edward was the one with the problem.

She told him to breathe through it, and then chastised him for not joining her in her yoga.

He promised to start the very next day, his forehead creased in pain.

She asked if he wanted to quit.

But the thought of giving up, the thought of her pulling away from him, made Edward pull her even closer.

And finally, after what felt like an eternity—

Bella cried out again.

Not in pain.

Not entirely in pleasure either.

In something beyond both.

While Edward panted for breath.

He felt like he was drowning.

At the same time, he felt like he was melting.

Because it was too much. It was everything.

But they were together.

Yet the words seemed inadequate.

"Oh my—"

"God!"

People want a happy ending. They want a perfect moment, distilled forever. Happiness. But it's fleeting. You have to catch it over and over and over again. Not just words. Not just touches. Both and neither.

THE END, REALLY

 **AN:**

 **The cramps were borrowed from a scene in** _ **The Illuminatus! Trilogy.**_

 **Though I obviously focused on the heteronormative aspects of the story, Plato's** _ **Symposium**_ **also includes a (not entirely politically correct) explanation for the origin of much of the LGBTQ+ community.**

 **In case anyone is thrown by the reference to Anton LaVey: Yes, Satanists are people too (anyone watching** _ **Silicon Valley**_ **?). No, they don't all sacrifice babies and torture animals (see** **James Richardson, Joel Best and David Bromley, eds.,** _ **The Satanism Scare**_ **, New York: A. de Gruyter, 1991)** **. Yes, I respect their right to their religion. No, I don't think that religious freedom means that they can break the law by sacrificing babies, etc., should they be so inclined (just like I don't think religious freedom gives you a pass on discriminating against LGBTQA+, for instance). No, I don't agree with their ethics (if you actually have to ask this, you've missed the entire point). Yes, my portrait of the Satanist as a hollow shell of a person is biased. It's fiction, not a science experiment. And I'm a NeoPlatonist. I included the reference because, as I have already mentioned, I'm trying to explode the** _ **Twilight**_ **fanfiction cliché of corruption and sophistication.**

 **I apologize for becoming so derelict in replying to reviews. I appreciate all of the reviewers (anonymous or not) who gave me well-intentioned, concrete advice, even when it was negative and even when I didn't take it. (Though I did take a lot of it!) Between working twelve to fourteen hour days and an extremely busy private life, it was a struggle even to read reviews, let alone reply to them, especially as some of the guest reviewers got increasingly vicious.**

 **Before posting this epilogue, I skimmed some of the hysterical ANs that I wrote in response to those "vicious" reviews, with the intention of deleting most of them. But when I came across the explanation I provided for Bella's virginity in the AN of chapter 4, I was annoyed to see how much I had pulled my punches, particularly given how much backlash this story ended up receiving. So I revised that AN with additional discussion, in case you are interested.**

 **Another recurring complaint I received regards the amount of animosity that Edward and Bella showed towards each other early on. As I've already mentioned, I added some flashbacks to the beginning of the story to try to humanize Edward (in response to reviewers' comments!). But I may have gone too far: Now I'm getting reviewers complaining that Bella—not Edward—is the problem. So I've just added some additional flashbacks to try to humanize her to chapter 4. Since the attempt to humanize one character involves demonizing the other, my efforts are probably going to naught, but I thought it was worth one last shot.**

 **After seeing "The End" in chapter 35, one reviewer said that they had expected to see at least one more chapter. Someone else said they wanted to see this couple five/ten years in the future. I think the story is done. (Really done.) No, they aren't having children. And while they will have minor issues with regard to work, etc., there is no major drama in their future. Are there any other issues that you think need to be addressed?**

 **Thank you for reading, particularly those of you who stuck with me even after you hated the turn(s) the story was taking. I hope you think it was worth your time in the end.**


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